Book Review : My Clingy Girlfriend

Blurb View:

Image Courtesy: Flipkart

What is a clingy girlfriend?

A clingy girlfriend will go through your phone.

She will destroy the contact numbers of every other girl on your phone.

She will delete your Facebook profile.

And will give you forty-five missed calls in the sixty minutes you put your phone on silent for an office presentation.

A clingy girlfriend will say

Carry two sets of fully charged mobile batteries so you can be in touch with me. Always.

In my dream, you were flirting with some other girl and then ended up in bed. Dreams are a manifestation of some act that is carried out in daily life. Are you cheating on me?

You have issues. You need to get therapy. Are you cheating on me?

And the worst one – why aren’t we married yet?

Obrokranti Banerjee’s girlfriend ticks all of these and more. Caught between wanting to break up and the fear that he’ll never find another girlfriend if he does, Obrokranti finds himself doing things he never imagined – watching Shah Rukh Khan movies, having to fast with her on karva chauth and perhaps worst of all, having his girlfriend join him on a boys night out!

Bestselling author Madhuri Banerjee brings to you an uproariously howlarious account of a simple Bengali boy in Mumbai who copes, mopes and hopes to find logic and reasoning with his clingy girlfriend. It’s writing Madhuri’s never done before and promises to change her name if you don’t laugh at least five times while reading this book!

You know you have one too. This is your story. My Clingy Girlfriend.

Review:

A bestselling author. A Bengali protagonist. A man’s story written by a woman. These unique features made me read ‘My Clingy Girlfriend’ and write this review. While the book seemed interesting in its concept and presentation, somehow the narration failed to attract me. I haven’t read Madhuri before, though I’ve heard a lot about her books.

In this one there’s a story, yes. Obrokanti Banerjee is our man and his life is dissected in this book, well, mostly his love life. Narrating in first person, Madhuri gets into details of Obro’s life, his obnoxious Punjabi live-in girlfriend Radha, his obscure colleague Menon and other morons in his office. His life is almost doomed with a clingy girlfriend, someone who defines the very concept of clingy and is nearly abominable. She keeps track of every minute in Obro’s life, with frequent calls surpassing the man’s irritation level. She controls every move of her boyfriend, including whom he should talk, meet, or call.

Continue reading →

Of Scents, Stinks and Whiffs

Image Courtesy : BlogAdda

Each household has its distinct orbit of odours. When you enter a house, the first thing that hits you is how it smells. I’ve been put off quite often by living rooms and corridors that reek of sweaty socks, possibly the worst stink in the world. Given the fact that we live in a humid sub-tropical country, it is extremely difficult to maintain a house free of any bad odour. Our food habits lead a big way into this phenomenon too.

Since we belong to the Bengali clan, our staple is fish and meat (as you may already assume)! Living in Calcutta, it is well accepted that every family cooks and eats fish, rather the exceptions are looked down upon. But in other cities, especially in other countries – I’ve been sceptical cooking fish in the apartment. While we may savour the aroma of freshly fried fish in mustard oil, I’ve heard neighbours complain and frown, which is pretty normal in the circumstances. It even happened that in our student condominium, we used to pull open the fire alarm, take out the batteries, cook our fish fry/curry and assemble the alarm again. The property laws in USA are so strict that we’d be fined and warned if the fire alarm ringed owing to the fumes while frying fish. So much for comfort food of fish and rice!

Continue reading →

A Trip to Culinary Heaven

Calcutta is arguably the culinary heaven of India, with Delhi and Hyderabad as close contenders. The mention of culinary heaven must take you to an olfactory, ocular and gustatory paradigm of experience. It should leave you with a phenomenon, not just an eating experience. Calcutta is pretty much capable of guiding you through an unforgettable culinary tour comprising of unimaginably varied food. You will find almost everything under the sun, especially with nuovo restaurants offering both world and local cuisine. But it is the heritage that still reigns the city’s food map. Allow me to introduce you to, and enlighten about five unique dishes quintessential to what we call ‘Calcutta cuisine.’ While you can still make/cook all of these at home, they are best tasted and tried at restaurants/street corners.

Kabiraji Cutlet – Most of us have been induced to believe that the wonderful, our own Kabiraji Cutlet has been derived from something called the British ‘Coverage Cutlet’. I’ve believed this blindly since time, but as I delved deep into the beloved Kabiraji Cutlet roots, it seemed Coverage Cutlet didn’t exist at all. To know more, read this wonderful article at Presented by P. I’d keep the discussion about the origin and etymology of Kabiraji Cutlet for later, and concentrate on the making and availability.