By Hitee Singh
Published seven decades apart, set in eras eleven decades far from each other these books reside at opposite ends of your local library. Believe me! I am all in for the classics but when I read Those Pricey Thakur Girls I couldn’t help comparing it to my favourite.
Before you bibliophiles wage a war against me, why don’t you keep your pens aside (yes I know that is the only weapon you will ever have!) and read what I have to say about their similarity.
1. Hard to Put Down:
1000 pages or 300 pages, it will just become a number once you start reading them. Once you are finished with it, you would want to start all over again and again and again just to enjoy those beautiful words of wisdom.
2. Clueless Heroines
You will find yourself screaming at those damsels in distress at various points as they struggle to understand the world outside their pretty heads. Our heroines are not just heroines but protagonists with plenty of things that are wrong with them.
3. Swoon Worthy Heroes
One is a blockade runner who prefers to live than die for a lost cause and the other is Dylan Singh Shekhawat, an investigative journalist who is jailed for standing by his principles. Despite that, both of them have a million girls drooling all over them. With every word they say you plead to god to make them come to your life and sweep you away.
4. Brings Nostalgia:
You are brought back into those simpler times when deciding dresses to wear at a barbeque was a lot tougher than deciding your next Whatsapp profile picture. They say socialising bits of help but the social media only adds to the stress as compared to those technologically backward days.
5. Inquilab Zindabad:
American Civil War and its reconstruction are the catalysts for how the story unfolds in Gone with the Wind and moves forward. Those Pricey Thakur Girls is driven by the justice being served to the victims of Anti-Sikh riots. Both of them set in an era of change and revolution.
6. They are Not Just Stories:
Despite the popular belief that novels are just stories, there is more to them than what meets the eye. Both dig deeper than just the story, they go on to study the human psyche. When you keep the book down it stays with you for a long-long time and influences your life.
7. Real Believable Characters:
You can easily spot a Scarlett in your college or office, the one who is all dolled up and has guys flocking around her like bees flock to flowers as she uses them to her advantage. But that one girl, who is going out of her way to help a lost cause but staying out of the limelight, isn’t she Debjani?
8. Both Ridicule Traditional Customs:
Though it must be hard for some of you to believe that America too, was once not a liberal society as it now claims to be. Our protagonists both in India as well as in Uncle Sam’s country are trying to break those social shackles and bring change.
