What is MOTHER PIOUS LADY all about?
The book that I have the priviledge of reviewing is a veritable gold mine for the marketers targetting the Indian Middle Class. Yet it does not come in the garb of a marketing book. It is actually a collection of articles written by Santosh Desai in his column called City City Bang Bang in the Times of India. The tag line of the book reads ‘Making Sense of Everyday India’. So, if I were running a compnay, I would buy a stack of this book and distribute it to my entire team of marketing. Afterall what could make more sense that a book that distills the essence that is middle class India.
This lens is a review of this wonderful book.
MOTHER PIOUS LADY – CENTRAL THEME
Traditionally, in the Indian society, there is no place for individualism. In the west you will find a Leonardo, a Michaelangelo, a Rafael, but in India the painters of the Ellora caves, and the builders of innumerable sculptures remain unnamed. As a result, the Indian middle class developed certain quirks that can be generalised. This generalisation cuts across region and religion. Our collective tongue salivates when we smell or even think of pickle, for example; we have this ‘chalta hai’ / ‘swalpa adjust madi’ attitude; we end our sentences with a negative question tag: “it is alright, no?” … I could go on.
On the other hand, it’s difficult to suppress the individual. Free spirit looks to break the shackles of societal constraints. But since there are so may of us, we end up ‘revolting’ more or less the same way. This then becomes another national trait.
And then there is this recent, relentless march to prosperity. Recent times have witnessed the rise of the individual. Individual success and western influence has given another twist to the Indian society. But in some ways, the more we strive for individualism, the more we end up acting like each other.
Santosh Desai has been capturing the myriad quirks of the Indian middle class for some time now in his columns. He has packaged the best of these in a book form that is incisive, without being offensive. Being witty helps.
What’s with the title
It comes from the matrimonial columns that generally goes like this
Status match for a very pretty, very fair, Brahmin girl.
Decent marriage.
Father Govt servant …
MOTHER PIOUS LADY.
Important!From the book
It is not unusual to find classified ads that seek to let out houses underline the fact that their toilets have Western-style commodes. Like an English-medium school, the charm of the western toilet has less to do with any intrinsic advantage that it offers and more to do with the cultural signal it emits … The Western toilet is designed to create distance between the purger and the purged … The act of purging becomes a rumble in the distance, an easy by-product of more civilized pastimes.
MOTHER PIOUS LADY – Rating and Recommendation
Style: Wity and at times hilarious. The author has a fantastic grip of the language.
Knowledge content: All you need to know about the Indian Moddle Class and India in general.
Applicability: For most of us, a journey into the past; for advertisers, a gold mine of knowledge. Can be a great conversation starter.
Recommendation: Highly recommended. Delightful little book.
Important!From the book
In Hollywood, angry men punch each other. In Bollywood angry people slap each other – mothers-in-law slap errant bahus, husbands slap sacrificing wives, parents slap children only to be remorseful later, honest police officers slap villains bearing bribes and so on. A road brawl starts with a slap, an altercation with the neighbours ends with one. The climax of a social film often has the slapee slapping the slapper to complete the cycle of revenge.
Squidoo.com review
