JOIN USThe House That BJ Built
Anuja Chauhan
Westland Ltd
2015, pp 433, Rs 350
Rarely can the cover design of a book portray what awaits the reader inside. Chauhan’s book does that aptly. The perky young girl guarding the gates of her ancestral home sets the very mood of the novel, steering the interested reader to probe deeper into the book. A sequel to Chauhan’s bestselling Those Pricey Thakur Girls, her recent one, The House That BJ Built, depicts the author at her best — witty, observant, and extremely funny. The book is a real exposure to the lifestyle of the upper classes and their obsession for money and property. The author, in a Chaucerian manner, uses her sharp power of observation to project the minutest details of her characters — their speech, dress and manners — to project a glittering and classy society she seems to understand so well.
Chauhan’s pet project, the Thakur girls, is carried forward to her recent book. This time her leading lady is the practical, calculative and confused Bonu aka Bonita Singh Rajawat, the granddaughter of Lakshmi Narayan Thakur or BJ as he is fondly called. An entrepreneur running a manufacturing unit of designer outfits, copied from leading fashion houses and making them “available to all the auntiejis of Hailey Road for a fraction of the price”, Bonu Singh has no qualms about her plagiarised and unethical work. The drama unfolds when BJ suddenly dies without resolving disputes on property issues. His four daughters, keen on selling off 16 Hailey Road and grabbing their share of crores of money, are met with unexpected resistance from Bonu, the daughter of their dead sister, who in keeping with her mother’s grudge against her siblings refuses to sell her part of the house. Further family discords come in with BJ’s brother putting forward his claims to the property, digging in unpleasant histories, and dragging the matter to the court.
Chauhan’s knight in shining armour, the dashing Samar Vir Singh, BJ’s step grandson and Bollywood movie maker, is nothing short of a real life hero himself. Entrusted with the duty of selling the house and dividing the money amicably between his aunts by his grandfather, Samar is besotted with his step-cousin, Bonu. Chauhan’s depiction of the electrifying romance between the two in a much Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge style keeps the readers engrossed. Bridging the gap between the four Thakur sisters and Bonu Singh, Samar has to resolve his own mental conflict of doing justice to the movie that he is making on the life of his great grandparents. With Samar in the forefront, quite a bit of Bollywood comes into the book naturally. Samar’s live-in girlfriend — designer Susan Adams, the heart-throb of all — actor Zeeshan, various other fictional big shots of the film industry take the readers through many bickering and nasty-truths-behind-the-scenes of Bollywood glamour.
As much as readers are captivated by the engrossing narrative and characterisation, Chauhan’s trump card seems to be her keen power of observation on the ways people speak. Readers can’t help toppling over with laughter at the stumbling everyday English which many of her characters use with complete ease. A perfect illustration of Rushdie’s “chutnification” is seen in Chachiji who steals away the limelight from the other prominent characters by her weird Hinglish which so well projects her nature. Chauhan’s characters are unconsciously witty and the continuous flow of riposte comes naturally to them.
The House That BJ Built is a more serious novel of Chauhan’s as compared to her other works. Behind the comic scenes and hilarious language lurks the dark side of property feuds dividing families. Lawsuits, lawyers who charge three-four lakhs per hour for consultation, defaming one’s own family members, are all possible in Chauhan’s world where people frequently say “money is mael” but nevertheless do not hesitate to go down to any level to acquire that dirt.
This quirky absorbing novel is worth the money paid for; making readers anticipate what is up next from Chauhan.