If Sylvia Plath’s cook had a death in the family every time she was due to throw a dinner party, I bet she would have stuck her head in the oven sooner,’ says Natasha, protagonist of Love in the Time of Affluenza by Shunali Khullar Shroff.
The debut novel is filled with the kind of humour—Rupti is the new Rumi—short in supply in Indian writing in English.
Satirical in parts and self-aware in others, this witty tour de force through the loves and lives of the one-percenters of Mumbai society who navigate their privileged lives is seen through Natasha’s eyes.
A former lifestyle editor-turned-part-time-columnist and full-time mother, who is married to a real-life prince and entrepreneur (Varun), Natasha becomes the perfect instrument for providing the kind of outsider-insider commentary (much like Shroff herself) that makes for an engaging read.
Talking about a Botox epidemic in an aside at the beginning of one of the initial chapters, the author tells the readers about how an “actress who’d quit after marrying a young restaurateur had had so much work done to her face that most of us thought that the man was openly dating another woman”.
No one is spared, not even Natasha. “Between the pins in my head and the Spanx digging into my skin, I feel like a soldier in a Stanley Kubrick film,” Natasha muses as she readies herself to attend a soiree for which a pep talk from her mother involved reminding her that ‘40 is the new 20’.
Filled with characters that one can imagine could easily fill a Madhur Bhandarkar screenplay, the story is peppered with gossiping socialites and charming movie directors.
However, it is Shroff’s sharp writing and deep-cutting observations that stop the narrative from going the superficial Candace Bushnell-copy way.
Alongside glitzy soirees and Valentino gowns is a commentary on how privilege and money are in no means a guarantee for a happy life, especially if you are a woman. As the author herself points out “an executioner at the gallows is more likely to find inner peace and a still mind than some of us women”.
Between Art of Joy sessions, kick-boxing classes and raising three children, Natasha is also playing confidante to her close friend Trisha who is having an extramarital affair.
Trisha has no one but Natasha with whom she can share her marriage troubles and talk about her clandestine affair with a man from the land detested by most Mumbaikars: Delhi.
In her first meeting with the fellow, Natasha is quick to point out that, “His jeans, the polo shirt worn with the collar up, the dark glasses and the seriously dandy shoes, flashing the LV logo, all have Vasant Kunj, New Money, New Delhi written all over them.
The rest of him belongs to Punjabi Bagh”. Given that Trisha’s legally wedded husband Nakul is Varun’s best friend-cum-business partner, it doesn’t take long for the situation to become very complicated for all those involved.
With strong and finely etched female characters who are neither put into clearly defined boxes nor painted with white and black strokes, Shroff offers a voyeuristic yet self-reflexive view of the upper echelons of Mumbai society.
While the narrative retains a lightness with respect to its tone, which is reminiscent of Bushnell and Moni Mohsin, it doesn’t shy away from asking difficult questions all the while exposing the double standards of a deep-rooted patriarchal society and the impossible expectations imposed by it on women, no matter how rich.
This book that Kevin Kwan himself called a novel “about a bunch of Crazy Rich South Asians” makes for the perfect binge read with a glass of wine and a weekend to spare.