2 States

A relationship book with an uplifting ending!  Chetan Bhagat’s 2 States tells of Krish and Ananya, two Indian-born MBA students who meet while attending college.  Ananya is the apple of everyone’s eye, a beautiful looking woman, attending the male dominated institution.  Everyone is interested in dating her, but Krish gets the girl by offering to tutor her, which later gets him to bed down with her!  Krish and Ananya spend every waking moment for the remainder of the year together as they plan on life outside of the college.  Only one challenge, they are from two very different parts of India, a Punjabi boy from Delhi and a girl Tamil Brahmin from Chennai.  Ananya believes if they can convince their parents of the love they share, they will be accepted as a couple to be married with family blessings.  Ahh, that’s the point, in their world parents are the ones to determine who is acceptable to marry their offspring.  So now the drama begins… from the moment Ananya and Krish apply to jobs to the meeting of the parents.  Of course it is a disaster!  Neither parent will accept the other, especially when they meet for the first time the day of graduation.  Besides the warring parents, Krish is dealing with a past episode with his abusive father whom he won’t speak to because of a previous love he was denied.  Krish is convinced to move to Ananya’s homestead after receiving his offer from Citibank.  Krish spends six months trying to have the family warm up to him (tutoring her brother, teaching her father Powerpoint for an important presentation, and having her mom sing on stage for a work project!).  It finally works until Krish’s mom comes to visit and it all unravels.  Ananya decides that it isn’t going to work, the two families are like two states divided.  All seems lost until the abusive Dad steps up and decides to love the son he seemingly abandoned for all of these years.  Guess what happens at the end?  Yup, all is good in love and war… the ending is sappy and predictable.  It is one of those future “chick flick” movies in the making.  Nice to understand a bit of the Indian culture, but I have to say the Dad thing made little sense, especially for how abusive he was in the book, but otherwise a harmless safe read.  I’m sure it will be released in the movies in the near future!