Bhaskar's tongue-in-cheek Mad in Heaven is a comedy of errors

You have to be from the subcontinent to be able to truly understand the circus that arranged marriages can be: the pressure on parents to find "good" boys (or girls, as the case may be) from "good" families for their precious progeny; the "viewing of the photo" to determine any remote possibility of proceeding; the "background checks" ("what if he/she has a secret drinking problem!"); the "first meeting" between virtual strangers who you will quite possibly be addressing as Dad and Mum and the Better Half by the time the next few months are out (if all goes well, of course).
Before you get up in arms, calm down; I'm not knocking this age-old tradition (one cannot ignore that many have indeed managed to find marital happiness through the system); just saying that if one were to step back and view the whole process objectively, you'd see there's more than enough material to inspire a comedy. Which is precisely what Dubai-based PG Bhaskar (who has written such books as Jack Patel's Dubai Dreams and Corporate Carnival) capitalised on in his latest book Mad in Heaven (a play on the phrase 'made in heaven', as you've, no doubt, figured by now).
It's a respectable TamBram household in sweltering Chennai that provides the setting for this story. Prakash and Pushpa Iyer have two daughters in their early 20s, and the couple - he, a senior correspondent and deputy editor at a newspaper; she, a high school chemistry teacher - feels the time has come to look for suitable prospects for their older girl.
Now, Priyanka (the bride-to-be) has the kind of goddess looks that brings down "several young men from the upper floors of nearby apartment blocks", when she goes for a run at the park with her father. She is, however, introverted and nothing like her younger sister, Palak - who, though less of a vision, makes up for it with her bubbly personality.
Things take an interesting turn when the family's landlord - who is always looking to make a quick buck - decides to add 'matchmaker' and 'detective' to his varied list of enterprising services. He suggests a young doc as a match for Priyanka, then secretly proposes investigating the same boy through his "reputed" detective agency (born the minute his idea was), just to be 'safe'. Little does he know that his hurriedly-hired nephew-now-spy happens to be madly in love with Priyanka - and therein begins a comedy of errors.
The book has Bhaskar back in full form with his trademark witty style. His characters are delightfully colourful - from the small-time aspiring politician who has an eye on Palak, pronounces 'party' as 'potty' and employs heavy verbal artillery when peeved, to the rowdy friends of the doctor/prospective-groom who are always laughing hard, partying harder, and may cost him the girl in the end.
The author also makes excellent use of the thick south Indian accent that people from that part of the world tend to slaughter the English language with - to hilarious effect. So, when the bribe-seeking policeman pounces on Priyanka (who was merely conferring with the detective) on the beach and triumphantly goes: 'So! What is all this damn whispering, ah? Kootchie-kooing, ah? Showing indecency in public, ah??' - it is not just Priyanka who winces, but you wince too, because you can almost hear that perfectly idiosyncratic 'ah?!' loud and clear in your own head.
For me, the TV show Friends has been my standard go-to remedy when I want to take my mind off things - even though I've already seen it several times over. But for about a week in between, it honestly was Mad in Heaven - because, sometimes, all you want is a laugh. a light read.. something to make you forget everything else for a bit. And PG Bhaskar's latest offering fits that bill to a T.
Excerpts:
"The two had, of late, made it a habit to spend close to an hour there for their daily dose of exercise and mosquito bites and for a few deep breaths of that wholesome mixture of vehicular emission and dust molecules that passes off for oxygen in Indian cities."
"Things had gone awry that Wednesday morning. In fact, every-thing that could have gone wrong went wrong. It was a big day for Murphy and his law."
"For the second time in three days, 'Su Ko' Muthu, the har-binger of new consciousness in the state of Tamil Nadu, lost his own."
karen@khaleejtimes.com

• India