<div align="justify">The constantly recurring theme of 'Baaz ke maphik' indicates that author Anuja Chauhan has changed tracks in this book with a shift from a female-oriented theme to a larger focus on an Air Force officer, Ishaan Faujdaar. Shaan is a lad from a village in Haryana, whose chase for thrills ("dhookh, dhookh, dhookh") lands him in the Air Force and wins him the nickname of 'Baaz'. To the question, "Why do they call you Baaz?" he explains, "It means falcon... or bird of prey. Because I swoop down on the enemy planes just like a baaz would." The cadets of the Air Force are subject to their flying instructor nicknamed 'Kuch bhi Carvalho's' constant refrain of the above phrase when he exhorts them thus, "First you stuff your nose down, Baaz ke maphik! Then you swoop down, Baaz ke maphik! Then you pull back and open the throttle wide, all the way till you’re on your back, if you have the guts, Baaz ke maphik!"<br /><br />Anuja seems to have attempted a wider canvas with this novel in which she focuses on the 1971 war of liberation of Bangladesh. The facts pertaining to the Indian Air Force (IAF), their fleet and other details about the period that is written about, have been done with a great deal of accuracy, though Anuja does clarify about the fictionalised aspects. There is a vast amount of information about the operations of the IAF that may be enlightening to the reader, though one might occasionally experience a sense of being overwhelmed.<br /><br />The romance is well handled with Anuja's trademark style of bringing together two opposite personalities. Here, the hero, Ishaan, is a swashbuckling, adventure-seeking Air Force officer from the boondocks of Haryana with a limited knowledge of idiomatic English, whilst his opposite number, Tehmina Dadyseth (known as Tinka), is from an upper-crust Parsi family, the daughter of a retired major general and a student of Delhi’s prestigious Miranda House. Not only are their backgrounds different but to add to the complications are their polar ideologies, with Tinka being an out-and-out peacenik, making statements that land her in hot waters, like: "I think hyper-patriotism is a disease. It's narrow, manipulative and exploitative. Look at the havoc it's wreaked all over the world. And in India, patriotism virtually means hating Pakistanis — who, till 20 years ago, were our own countrymen." During Ishaan and Tinka's first encounter, she tells him about her plans for becoming a photographer and putting an end to war, to which he replies, "Put me out of business, you mean." Right from the earliest chapters, one can’t help wondering about where this romance is headed.<br /><br />The best part of this novel is that it seems to have something for everybody. Besides the flag-waving Indians who wear their patriotism on their sleeves and the peace lovers who would build bridges with Pakistan, there are other issues that Anuja has touched upon that make for interesting reading. She dwells on the class aspect when she speaks about the snobbery of the pilots who come from the premier National Defence Academy (NDA) and their attitudes towards those like Ishaan who lack that background and have had to pass an exam to join the Air Force Flying College. It is another matter, though, that when it comes to courage and bravery, it does not matter about your educational background resulting in the tall Rakesh Agarwal and Madan Subbiah from the NDA becoming the best of friends with the short-of-physical-stature Ishaan, and them accepting that he is truly deserving of the title 'Baaz'. As Tinka says in the end to a young girl about Ishaan, "He taught us that size doesn’t matter."<br /><br />By sheer coincidence, Tinka lands up modelling for a 'Freesia' soap ad in a waterfall, which results in her becoming a poster girl across the country. It is quite clear that Anuja has used the real scenario of the famous Liril waterfall ad and its fair-skinned model, Karen Lunel, and interchanged it with the dark-skinned Tinka, thus trying to create a 'black is beautiful' approach in a fair-skin-obsessed India.<br /><br />Other interesting angles are the use of a mixture of Hindi and English in the Shobhaa De tradition with a liberal interspersing of Haryanvi. Anuja’s characteristic humour, bordering on the risqué, is very much present throughout.<br /><br />Baaz makes for an absorbing tale with the most unexpected ending. Where it disappoints, though, is with the hero being made to look larger than life, with a very Hindi-film kind of simple solution in a complex war-zone situation. The novel does seem to bear similarities to a particular story from Bapsi Sidhwa's collection, Their Language of Love, and the author would have done well in offering credit to it in her list of acknowledgements.<br /><br /><br /></div>
<div align="justify">The constantly recurring theme of 'Baaz ke maphik' indicates that author Anuja Chauhan has changed tracks in this book with a shift from a female-oriented theme to a larger focus on an Air Force officer, Ishaan Faujdaar. Shaan is a lad from a village in Haryana, whose chase for thrills ("dhookh, dhookh, dhookh") lands him in the Air Force and wins him the nickname of 'Baaz'. To the question, "Why do they call you Baaz?" he explains, "It means falcon... or bird of prey. Because I swoop down on the enemy planes just like a baaz would." The cadets of the Air Force are subject to their flying instructor nicknamed 'Kuch bhi Carvalho's' constant refrain of the above phrase when he exhorts them thus, "First you stuff your nose down, Baaz ke maphik! Then you swoop down, Baaz ke maphik! Then you pull back and open the throttle wide, all the way till you’re on your back, if you have the guts, Baaz ke maphik!"<br /><br />Anuja seems to have attempted a wider canvas with this novel in which she focuses on the 1971 war of liberation of Bangladesh. The facts pertaining to the Indian Air Force (IAF), their fleet and other details about the period that is written about, have been done with a great deal of accuracy, though Anuja does clarify about the fictionalised aspects. There is a vast amount of information about the operations of the IAF that may be enlightening to the reader, though one might occasionally experience a sense of being overwhelmed.<br /><br />The romance is well handled with Anuja's trademark style of bringing together two opposite personalities. Here, the hero, Ishaan, is a swashbuckling, adventure-seeking Air Force officer from the boondocks of Haryana with a limited knowledge of idiomatic English, whilst his opposite number, Tehmina Dadyseth (known as Tinka), is from an upper-crust Parsi family, the daughter of a retired major general and a student of Delhi’s prestigious Miranda House. Not only are their backgrounds different but to add to the complications are their polar ideologies, with Tinka being an out-and-out peacenik, making statements that land her in hot waters, like: "I think hyper-patriotism is a disease. It's narrow, manipulative and exploitative. Look at the havoc it's wreaked all over the world. And in India, patriotism virtually means hating Pakistanis — who, till 20 years ago, were our own countrymen." During Ishaan and Tinka's first encounter, she tells him about her plans for becoming a photographer and putting an end to war, to which he replies, "Put me out of business, you mean." Right from the earliest chapters, one can’t help wondering about where this romance is headed.<br /><br />The best part of this novel is that it seems to have something for everybody. Besides the flag-waving Indians who wear their patriotism on their sleeves and the peace lovers who would build bridges with Pakistan, there are other issues that Anuja has touched upon that make for interesting reading. She dwells on the class aspect when she speaks about the snobbery of the pilots who come from the premier National Defence Academy (NDA) and their attitudes towards those like Ishaan who lack that background and have had to pass an exam to join the Air Force Flying College. It is another matter, though, that when it comes to courage and bravery, it does not matter about your educational background resulting in the tall Rakesh Agarwal and Madan Subbiah from the NDA becoming the best of friends with the short-of-physical-stature Ishaan, and them accepting that he is truly deserving of the title 'Baaz'. As Tinka says in the end to a young girl about Ishaan, "He taught us that size doesn’t matter."<br /><br />By sheer coincidence, Tinka lands up modelling for a 'Freesia' soap ad in a waterfall, which results in her becoming a poster girl across the country. It is quite clear that Anuja has used the real scenario of the famous Liril waterfall ad and its fair-skinned model, Karen Lunel, and interchanged it with the dark-skinned Tinka, thus trying to create a 'black is beautiful' approach in a fair-skin-obsessed India.<br /><br />Other interesting angles are the use of a mixture of Hindi and English in the Shobhaa De tradition with a liberal interspersing of Haryanvi. Anuja’s characteristic humour, bordering on the risqué, is very much present throughout.<br /><br />Baaz makes for an absorbing tale with the most unexpected ending. Where it disappoints, though, is with the hero being made to look larger than life, with a very Hindi-film kind of simple solution in a complex war-zone situation. The novel does seem to bear similarities to a particular story from Bapsi Sidhwa's collection, Their Language of Love, and the author would have done well in offering credit to it in her list of acknowledgements.<br /><br /><br /></div>
