Ishita's Updates

"Noble concept. Poor execution.

Can't lie, this had all the makings of a great fluffy Bollywood-like rom-com. The 1995 setting. A fictional small town. A spirited, bubbly protagonist. Road trips, romance, and good food!

What could go wrong?

A lot, apparently. A nearly 300-page book should not feel like a 500-page slog to get through. That too for a novel with such a light, whimsical story to tell. The prose is juvenile and utterly underwritten, and the world-building is shallow, to say the least. I understand the intention of keeping it sweet and simple. To create a silly, accessible universe that demands little out of its audience in the long run. But things do not play out accordingly.

The book demands one crucial thing from its reader. And that's patience. Lots of it. The hunt for the elusive magic ingredient of 'Lallan ke Laddoo' acts as a proper McGuffin of sorts. The beating heart of a sweeping desi romantic adventure, if you may. But the quest in itself is padded with interminable fillers. Half of it makes little sense. All that patience you invest, all that meandering around, is repaid through awfully unsatisfactory payoffs. A breed of eventual answers that almost makes one mimic a desi aunty and exclaim "hein?" out loud!

And then there's Tara and Nikhil, our favourite dumdums...

The conversations and the exchanges, featuring our alleged cutie patooties, read out like fanfics I'd pen back in tenth grade or so. They lack visible chemistry. The friends-to-lovers arc feels forced in hindsight. And the proximity doesn't really make a reader root for them wholeheartedly. Making the two, the human personification of an undercooked dish served prematurely. Something that can also be implied about the (apparently) vintage world surrounding our pair, which barely feels old enough, barring the desperate reminder every now and then.

Lots of telling, very little showing in this one, kids. But that should be fine in itself, considering the simple nature of it all. Right?

Only then do you realise that the author is a 'Lady Shri Ram' alumni with creative writing acumen from the University of Edinburgh. That shifts things into perspective. By this, I do not mean to be pretentious and argue that one should commit solely to writing literary fiction and aim for those lofty critical awards. But I simply expect greater cohesion and planning from a published author of such stature. That's all. No hate, otherwise.

It has its moments, for sure. Tara's need to prove the patriarchal household wrong in lieu of an actual father figure was a cause that I really empathised with.

But that was simply not enough to salvage this wonky, sinking ship that felt more like a hopeless attempt at being aesthetically cosy than a feel-good triumph that I hoped it'd be. Instead of 'Lallan Sweets', the book should have been named 'Siyaka mein Siyappa'. Seeing how it nearly sent me into a dreaded reading slump and left me short-charged with its repeated penchant for grand anticlimaxes. It does teach you a lesson, though. Not all that glitters turns out to be gold. Colourful covers, all be damned.

Call me the fun police all you want, but you've been warned.

(1.75/5 || November-December, 2023)"