My Clingy Girlfriend: Book Review

Title: My Clingy Girlfriend
Author: Madhuri Benerjee
Publisher: Westland
ISBN: 978-9384030896
Number of Pages: 256
Price: 295 [INR] Genre: Humour

Blurb: 

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!

Plot:

The protagonist Obrokranti Banerjee is a Bengali bachelor who comes down to Mumbai to carve out a niche for himself in his field of study. He meets Radha and she becomes his girlfriend, or rather the clingy girlfriend. She moves in with him, acts like the lady of the house, rather like his wife and is extremely possessive of him. She keeps an eye both eyes on him, calls every half an hour or so, leaves hundreds of messages, checks all the contacts and messages on his phone, deletes the female contacts saved, the whatsapp messages, sends random messages from his facebook profile and much much more. All she does is nag and order their cook to prepare lunch for Ob. Meanwhile, he desperately tries to make a good life for them both and is unbelievably patient with her demands.  Thus said, for Obro, there is no space or room to breathe.

Whoa!

The blurb made me pick up the book and I had a perpetual smile throughout the initial chapters. The narration is witty and accentuates the need of the little space you need in any relationship. The author has done a remarkable job bringing out the dark side of romance, putting herself in a man’s shoes and writing in a man’s perspective. As I read on, I developed a genuine liking towards Obro, feeling bad for him and at the same time wondering how he will get out of the mess named, ‘Radha’.

Hats off to the cover page of the book.

Few lines that made me roll in the aisles are:

• I am already moulded by my girl friend, owned by my boss and whipped by my landlord.
• Fact: Most women at some point in their lives have had a dream about their man with another woman and then gotten angry about it. They will be pissed off the entire day and scream at him for something they would generally ignore. And really, it won’t even be about your towel. Dreams, my friend. Beware of them.
• Most men’s brains freeze up during an argument with the woman in their life. While a woman can and will lucidly rant about her feelings, the man will not be able to say anything. And then she screams at him to ‘say something’, all he can come up with are the things that he vaguely remembers from previous arguments.

Ouch!

There are some ground rules scattered throughout the book on ‘how to buy gifts for your girlfriend’, ‘five ways to be a good lover’, ‘ways to get out of discussing marriage’ etc. Not only were they obnoxious, I should say they were unpleasant to read. I understand that the book was written in a man’s point of view, but I wonder if sex is the only main aspect in a relationship according to men! Else, why is it portrayed as the only reason Obro doesn’t get out of this relationship. i.e. because he is afraid that he will never find a girlfriend and never have sex again in life. Also, I couldn’t like the way author generalizes men and women based on the characters of the story.  There are sexist remarks throughout the story which gradually makes the reading boring.

Being a South Indian, I do not know much about how Bengali men and Punjabi women are. But I certainly know that all they do is not eat, sit in front of TV watching cricket matches and fart.

Do I recommend?

Probably yes. Only because it is a light read!

Rating:

2.5 on 5