What do you do when your relatives won’t stop bugging you about getting married? For most people, it’s an inevitably stressful time. But journalist and playwright Nandini Krishnan decided to have some fun with it. “I’ve been wanting to write a satire on marriage ever since I was put on the marriage market,” she laughs. “Although, that didn’t last too long,” the reviewer-turned author admits sardonically.
At a reading of Hitched on Friday evening to a mixed audience of youngsters, aunties and uncles at Starmark, Express Avenue – Nandini got the ball rolling by reading out extracts from her debut release. The first chapter catches one’s attention immediately with the title - You need to train your man like a dog with potential!
An acridly funny movie reviewer for The New Indian Express, Nandini makes no apologies for any humour bordering on offensive - the material, although in part autobiographical, mostly involves real life stories from 25 urban-liberal women at different stages of marriage. “It’s not a novel,” she insists, and explains, “because this book is non-fiction.” Recommended by Shaadi.com (according to a sticker on the cover), parents can take heart that it offers some ‘home truths’ on arranged marriage that you can giggle at and yet stay watchful of, when the time comes to tie the knot.
There are chapters such as Living with in-laws: Does it make sense? to How do I jump into bed with someone I don’t know? And all from authentic sources, minus their real names of course. And then there are the horror stories...of awkward first meetings, like being locked in with ‘good intentions’ at a friend’s party or the parent-groom set up at a bar...Incidentally at the latter, a rather unchivalrous prospective Malayali groom ordered two red bulls without asking what the lady wanted, and when she ordered a coke instead, he proceeded to ask her for a sip of her ‘cock’!
With lots of laughs from the audience, one thing is for sure – the next time you have a friend’s wedding to attend, this book definitely makes the gift list. In conversation with Nandini at the book launch reading were author Shreekumar Varma and artist and jounalist Parvathy Nayar.