READER’S DIE JEST. (In brackets)

‘Ungkul! Why you looking sad?’

‘I just read a book.’

‘Reading books makes you sad? That’s why papa tells me not to read books.’

‘Arre, this is such a sad story. That’s why.’

‘Tell me the story, Ungkul.’

‘ Par yeh kahani toh bachhon ke liye nahi hain . This story is not for children. (This is how Ravinder Singh translates all the Hindi dialogue into English. In brackets.)’

‘So what? I watch Friends. Mama doesn’t know.’

‘Achha? Ok. So there’s this student who goes from Bihar to Delhi to study in a college.’

‘Ungkul! You read Half Girlfriend ? Then why you said…’

‘No no. This one’s a girl. That was a boy. Rupali Sinha. If you’re from Patna you have to be a Sinha.’

‘When does she meet the boy? What’s his name?’

‘When she is planting a sapling. This is important, ok? Don’t laugh. His name is Arjun. Political type.’

‘Sardonic but strong? Beard? Kurta? Broods?’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Have you seen how your Ravinder looks these days? Aren’t his heroes always him? They even had his name in the first two books.’

‘You’ve read I Too Had A Love Storyand Can Love Happen Twice?’

‘No, didi has. She told me. Who is Rupali’s friend? She has to have a girlfriend.’

‘Saloni. Rupali is sweet and salwar kameez…’

‘So Saloni is off-shoulder and shorts, no?’

‘ Tumne yeh kitab padh li hai kya ? (Have you read this book already?)’

‘Nahi nahi . Formula. You don’t know?’

‘So it’s also formula that Rupali joins the music club and Arjun’s political party breaks their instruments?’

‘Obviously, Ungkul. And I can tell you what happens after that. You said Arjun is in politics? The girl does something brave, no? And the political parties all want her to join?’

‘You tell me the story then. Also tell me why I read this novel.’

‘Because you are a man of 21 and you’ve never studied in Delhi University and never had a girlfriend and you can’t understand anything complex.’

‘Oye! Do you know this novel has molestation and atheism in it? Rupali stops a professor named Mahajan from molesting a lady peon. That’s not deep? I couldn’t even make a Facebook status, it was so difficult to understand.’

‘You understood why Arjun is an atheist? He is, na? Can’t be Rupali. Or Saloni. Achha, aren’t there any other characters?’

‘Hain na. Of course, there are. Prosonjeet, whose name is misspelt like Kolkotta is misspelt. And Madhav. I think he has walked out of Chetan sir’s book into this one.’

‘Ok then Ravinder makes this boy and girl fall in love? How do they tell each other?’

‘Why is that important?’

‘Uff, Ungkul! Isi mein toh saari pareshaani hai . (That’s where all the trouble is.) How to tell her you love her. I hope you’ve learnt something.’

‘My bheja was fried, yaar. They went to watch planes land and then had a heavy discussion about where she would take her husband for a holiday and then he said ‘you’ instead of ‘my wife’ and that was the proposal. I’ll never manage anything so difficult.’

‘Then? Arjun took Rupali to meet his mother? No love possible without mother’s approval.’

‘Yes.’

‘Ungkul?’

‘What?’

‘Do they kiss? Make out? Make love?’

‘Chhih!’

‘What, Ungkul, you’re such a prude. Phir toh I am sure there is kissing at most.’

‘Nahi, the other thing also. But only in dream sequences. Thank god. Nahin toh I wouldn’t have been able to take it.’

‘Now there will be a tragedy, right?’

‘How did you know?’

‘Formula, Ungkul. Your Ravin doesn’t write happy endings.’

‘Haan. So Mahajan, that’s the professor whom Rupali and Arjun had managed to get into jail, gets bail. And then…’

‘Why you looking angry now, Ungkul?’

‘And then this novel goes where it has no right to. I shouldn’t be telling you about this, you’re so young. But you know the Nirbhaya incident, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Don’t tell me that…’

‘Yes. The same thing happens to Rupali. Mahajan hires thugs to make it happen.’

‘So this book takes something really, really horrible that affected everyone in India and turns it into a sad ending for a romance?’

‘Something like that.’

‘That’s why you’re angry?’

‘Yes. How could he have taken something so big and made a silly novel out of it — just because there has to be death at the end of his love stories? Some things are bigger than selling thousands of books to starstruck adults with the brains of TV-watching adolescents.’

‘Ungkul! That’s yourself you’re talking about.’

‘Yes, this novel is about me. And that’s why I’m angry. And afraid. Of the way I look to myself.’

‘Ungkul, you said the sapling was important. Why?’

‘Because the girl dies but the sapling lives and becomes her pink dupatta, which Arjun should have used to muzzle himself. So that we would never have had to read this story and pretend that we’re readers. That would have been a happy ending.’

(This monthly column helps you talk about a book without having to read it.)

(Arunava Sinha translates classic and contemporary Bengali fiction and non-fiction into English. Follow him on twitter >@arunava )

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