Nitish Kumar Says: Two States-Can you go till the end?

I already wrote once about @chetan_bhagat that what impressions I have about him, when I wrote my well read post about Chetan Vs Amir, so not mentioning the same again. Should say Two states seems to be the best work of Chetan after Five Point Someone and since I come to read the same, it was a due over me to write something about it.

Two States is about Krish and Ananya, the graduates from IIM-Ahmedabad fall in love with each other and wish to remain together for rest of the life. They are not Hero or Heroines of Bollywood neither do they live in outside the India, so obviously, this wasn’t to be that easy just like their choices. Both already earning higher than their families ever were, but still they wanted to keep their families agreed over their decision. Was earning well enough and being independent, let you make your choices that easily in India? Were the cultural differences between the families that easy to overcome even if they try their best? How much is it worth for hurting many to get someone for rest of your life?

Chetan calls it to be treated as fiction, but also mentions it as semi-autobiographic means based on own experiences (Anusha and Chetan been IIM-A graduates and their marriage possibly gone in the same way), which makes it interesting to read and somewhere in the same league as the first novel from the same author was. He introduces the storyline in his own simple ways …

Love marriages around the world are simple

Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy.
They get married.

In India, there are a few more steps:

Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy.
Girl’s family has to love boy. Boy’s family has to love girl.
Girl’s family has to love boy’s family. Boy’s family has to love girl’s family.
Girl and Boy still love each other. They get married.

The story has the same crisp and realistic nature (even if some sees exaggerations at things like live in etc, but people in similar lifestyles knows that its real) as it has been in his first one Five Point Someone. Though storyline is the most common one, but the way it has been treated makes it almost real in such a way that we start evaluating our options that can we …..

Chetan calls it rightly that it is easy to fight and rebel, but it is much harder to convince. Parents never come to be convinced that its our lives they are talking about and its not hurting their ego by making our most sensitive decision about life. While being at College or job, we almost never ask or care about what cast/ community of the person next to you is and may be never expect someone to care about till we started thinking about marrying the same person.

Parents refuse to accept your choice and behave in such fanatic manner (no matter how educated or matured they might be) that we get confused that they are the same, we expected to be sympathetic towards us and more logical about anything they say. We find ourselves emotionally this much stressed that come to think about reconsidering our love and start thinking in our parents way that with time everything will be settled back to normal.

Two states questions why and how much we are scared to marry outside our community? Why we even start thinking that if it is worth it to marry with making so many members of the families unhappy? Why we gave up at the end or thought its better to marry first and then convince? Its just not about two extremely different communities (like in Two States, Tamil and Panjabi), but about similar communities as well and the way battle was treated till the end makes it so realistic that many of us come to think that were they weak that given up and didn’t went till the end like Krish and Ananya did?

If you think that the story is cheesy or like other movies over similar topics and you can’t really relate yours own, then you are wrong. Like most of us, when Krish introduces Ananya to his mother, she refuses to get smitten by beauty or education or anything else. Yes!!! like most of us, Krish’s mother too annoy/ insults Ananya and her family with her comments. Yes!!! Even the first meet tells both of them that its going to be an impossible chase.

Is the story ends here? No… they wait patiently (sometimes even given up) in worse situations, Krish even convinces Girl’s family totally by filling up personal ambitions of them, so that now they don’t get ashamed of accepting him as groom of their girl. But… is that enough? Love stories many times find one family convinced or totally convinced even then does it make them happen?

Krish’s mom does it all like getting ill or crying or whatever you could have seen in your families if ever tried. Krish gives up like most of us could have and even were sent to physiatrist. Ananya gets proposal of marrying to much better clan of her own community, Krish even meets one girl of his community for marriage purpose on insisting of her mother. Nothing like that never happened or wont happen if you try. May be Krish got a lucky father to make it happened or its dramatic like movies and you don’t know if you could be this much lucky ever. We get a happy ending in dramatic ways settling everything right, but they really fought it well and the dramatic way was no where out of the world. It asks you a question that Can you go till the end? Can you?????

Like one other review said over it, I also come to think that why couples from different communities give into their feelings for each other when they know that they wont go against the grain of their families and that their families will never ever accept their partner? But perhaps somewhere inside, I know the answers, have seen many, have felt thing closely that how come one falls….. so know that sometimes we are bound of have lifelong scars, if cannot sustain the pain of a long struggle before.

If you search the web about Chetan, then you find many criticizing him on his writing style or say that he write movie kind of literature, but I favour him as he make people like me to believe that we can write best sellers in the same way, we talk or think. May be One Night @ Call Center was more dramatic to suit the audience that loved his Five Point Someone, may be Three Mistake of My Life was kind of Bollywood movie using craze of Cricket and incidents like Gujrat Riots, Earth Quakes, but after Five Point Someone Chetan really given another masterpiece, with which you never feel that you are reading a story, which is some fiction only.

Can I be Krish?