He’s right. The story has an interesting premise, but it’s one of the worst-written books I’ve ever read, falling somewhere between bad high school love poem and sixth-grade book report. You’ll laugh out loud. The hilarity will be entirely unintentional.

The best review of a book this bad is to quote from it liberally. Enjoy the stank. Spoilers below.

The author writes groaners rivaling the one from Notting Hill:

‘Deep inside, I am just a girl who wants to be with her favorite boy. Because like you, this girl is a person who needs a lot of love.’

There are even more lines straight out of a Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest:

‘It is time to face the real world, even if it is harder and painful. I’d rather fly and crash, than just snuggle and sleep…’

‘Do you have a dark side, Shyam?’ … ‘I have so many–like half a dozen dark sides. I am like dark-sided hexagon [sic].’

Then he pats himself on back for minor-league wordplay:

‘Sorry, but calling is not my calling,’ Vroom said. I thought his last line was quite clever, but it wasn’t the right time to appreciate verbal tricks.

Telling, not showing — the author can’t write action, so he grasps at a voiceover:

‘We’re hanging above a hole, supported only by toothpicks. We’re screwed,’ Radhika said, summing up the situation for all of us.

He stoops to the cheap, Hardy Boys suspense close:

Like a drunk tramp, the Qualis stagggered down and into the site of a high-rise construction project. [Chapter ends suddenly.]

Here’s a vague generality (‘gross’) with a dangling antecedent (what’s outside the entrance: the toppings, the pizza or the puke?):

‘Unnh…’ Vroom said as he threw up. Puke spread around like a 12″-thin crust pizza with gross toppings outside the entrance.

He shares his deep insight into female psychology:

The effort it sometimes takes to make women speak up is harder than interrogating terrorists…

When girls call a guy a ‘teddy bear’, they just mean he is a nice guy but they will never be attracted to him. Girls may say they like such guys, but teddy bears never get to sleep with anyone…

The prose drips with sexual repression:

It is never easy for a guy to work with a hot girl in the office. I mean, what are you supposed to do? Ignore their sexiness and stare at our computer? Sory, somehow I don’t think men were designed to do that…

Here’s the no-good, really bad insult which sets a character off on a bout of tremendous violence. Oooh, severe:

‘Yeah, I’ll change the dust bag. What about you guys? When will you change your dusty country?’

He includes lots of anti-American racism:

‘Remember,’ the instructor said to the class, ‘a thirty-five-year-old American’s brain and IQ is the same as a ten-year-old Indian’s brain. This will help you understand your clients… Americans are dumb, just accept it…’

The novel does have a few highlights:

Apart from blonde threesomes, hitting your boss is the ultimate Indian male fantasy…

According to Priyanka, a door-bitch is the hostess who stands outside the disco. She screens every girl walking in, and if your waist is more than twenty-four inches, or if you were not wearing something right out of an item number, the door-bitch will raise an eyebrow at you like you are a fifty-year-old aunty.

But maybe he should’ve just unconsciously internalized something created by a writer.

But as I am a gentle and one-track uncle, let’s talk about how Everything Comes From Desiland. A study just published in a British science journal pushes the idea that the “Loch Ness monster” was actually an Indian elephant on its way to performing in a circus:

Neil Clark, curator of paleontology at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, sees striking similarities between descriptions of Nessie and what an Indian elephant looks like while swimming. And perhaps not coincidentally, a traveling circus featuring elephants passed by the misty lake in the 1930s at the height of the monster sightings.

“It is quite possible that people not used to seeing a swimming elephant — the vast bulk of the animal is submerged, with only a thick trunk and a couple of humps visible,” thought they saw a monster, Clark said in an interview Tuesday…

But he said the vast majority of sightings occurred not long after 1933, the first year of the A82, a road that runs alongside the lake. Around that time, Mills’s traveling circus was visiting nearby Inverness and “would have stopped on the banks of Loch Ness to allow their animals to rest.”

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p>You can judge for yourself whether Nessie is desi. Take a long, sensitive look…

Convincing, na? One shadowy mystery solved, one to go.

Only fools in pools see lumps and trunks as things that go plunk in the night. That dark summer night, in your jacuzzi, that was me. My humps, your aquifer, please excuse. I was on my way to performing in a circus.

• Roundtable Interview of the President by Pakistani Journalists (official transcript: whitehouse.gov). If the president can’t keep his meetings with Jack Abramoff straight, how is he supposed to remember how many times he has met President Musharraf? Interview of the President by PTV (Pakistan) (official transcript: whitehouse.gov)
• The President’s Address to the Asia Society (official transcript: whitehouse.gov). President Bush jokes about India’s economy proving the world is flat. Thank you Thomas Friedman.
• He’s Welcome in Pakistan (Ahmed Rashid op-ed in the WP 2/26) Rashid, author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism…, writes about the 6 million dollar question from 2001 using the presidential visit as backdrop- – where is Osama?
• Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the Sunday IHT (via the NYT) about the influence of Bush’s Texas connections on the India trip. She references the immigrant-success stories that Bush became aware of while governor of Texas, i.e. rich doctors that worked hard and gave Bush lots and lots of money. Bumiller, it seems also has learned of MSingh’s daughter Amrit, the ACLU attorney.

• The March 6 Newsweek issue’s cover stories are on India and Indian Americans. The issue features Salman Rushdie’s muse Padma Lakshmi on the cover and includes stories by Fareed Zakaria (India Rising) where he writes about the increasing prominence of India on an international scale; Ramin Setoodeh (At Home: American Masala) writes (under a very similar title to an article the magazine published almost a year ago) on the highly educated first generation desi-american population; Keith Naughton (Outsourcing Silicon Valley East) writes about an India that is no longer all about call centers and basic tech support; and a very poignant piece by Pulitzer prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri (My Two Lives) on a topic which some think we focus too much attention on, the identity of hyphenated Americans. The section I paraphrase below really hit home for me a couple of years ago when my grandfather passed away. What happens when those who we look up to and receive guidance from are no longer there to give it to us? This isn’t of course strictly a cultural thing, but for children of immigrants I think it takes on an added cultural significance. As we first genners come into our own as adult Americans, its only natural that our parents, our direct connection to part of us that comes from half-way around the world, are getting older. The fear of the unknown, of the time when our parents are no longer around to guide and advise us, and what this means for our cultural identity, I think can be really puzzling.

  While I am American by virtue of the fact that I was raised in this country, I am Indian thanks to the efforts of two individuals. I feel Indian not because of the time I’ve spent in India or because of my genetic composition but rather because of my parents’ steadfast presence in my life. They live three hours from my home; I speak to them daily and see them about once a month. Everything will change once they die. They will take certain things with them–conversations in another tongue, and perceptions about the difficulties of being foreign. Without them, the back-and-forth life my family leads, both literally and figuratively, will at last approach stillness. An anchor will drop, and a line of connection will be severed. I have always believed that I lack the authority my parents bring to being Indian. But as long as they live they protect me from feeling like an impostor. Their passing will mark not only the loss of the people who created me but the loss of a singular way of life, a singular struggle. The immigrant’s journey, no matter how ultimately rewarding, is founded on departure and deprivation, but it secures for the subsequent generation a sense of arrival and advantage. I can see a day coming when my American side, lacking the counterpoint India has until now maintained, begins to gain ascendancy and weight. It is in fiction that I will continue to interpret the term “Indian-American,” calculating that shifting equation, whatever answers it may yield.

• Interview of the President by Doordarshan, (India) (official transcript: whitehouse.gov)
• Roundtable Interview of the President by Indian Journalists (official transcript: whitehouse.gov). This is nothing against the President since he doesn’t type out the transcript, but whoever does really messed up. In response to a question asking what President Bush’s earliest memory of India was, the President responded by saying:

THE PRESIDENT: Ghandi. It’s my first memory, as I think about India. You know, a person who was so spiritual that he captured the imagination of the entire world. He’s proof positive that — throughout history there have been individuals that have had the capacity to shape thought and to influence and — beyond border. And he did that.

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p>I like the answer, just disappointed that the person writing the transcript didn’t think it was important enough to spell the man’s name correctly. It is G-A-N-D-H-I. Also see our faq.

Related post: Media Roundup: The Trip Part 1; Brown takes over Davos; “The mood right now is, Indiaah!”

• Newly anointed Yale Trustee Fareed Zakaria says in his latest Newsweek column (2/27/06) that President Bush’s upcoming trip to India is equivalent to President Nixon’s visit to China. I don’t know about that, MSingh isn’t exactly Chairman Mao.
• The AP summarizes a roundtable President Bush gave to Indian journos in DC. Among other things, we find out that Bush is a fan of cricket (I wonder if his Texas people know that) and will not be visiting the Taj. (AP 2/23/06)
• Matthew Cooper writes in Time (2/23) that India, amidst all the troubles the administration is currently facing, is a bright spot and that “it’s probably safe to say that a President who hasn’t always loved to travel abroad is very much looking forward to his latest getaway.” He must have never heard of Delhi Belly. “When the President jets off to India (as well as Pakistan) next week, it will be his first visit to the region and the first by a Republican president in 35 years, since Richard Nixon traveled there.”
• The Economist, one of my favorite newsmagazines, has a great article with a great lede that summarizes the past India-US relationship the best. “On the 13-hour flight next week from Washington to Delhi, George Bush could do a lot worse than to put aside his briefing books and curl up instead with E.M. Forster’s best-known novel. “A Passage to India” is a tale, above all, of misunderstanding: of wrong signals, exaggerated expectations, offence unwittingly caused and taken, and inevitable disappointment. It is a parable of the complications that arise when eager Anglo-Saxons go travelling on the Indian subcontinent.”
• The WSJ 2/21/06 (subscription only) writes about the potential tension that could occur between MSingh and President Bush because Singh’s daughter Amrit is an ACLU attorney. Thanks WSJ for finally writing about this, although we’ve previously covered it. From the WSJ:

“Ms. Singh’s dogged pursuit of U.S. government information has subjected the Bush administration to withering criticism of its treatment of suspected terrorists. But among the ironies of the post-Sept. 11 world is the fact that this particular critic of the Bush administration is also the relative of one of its newest friends. Amrit, 36 years old, is the youngest daughter of Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India. Mr. Singh, 73 years old, will host President Bush at a summit in New Delhi early next month. While the soft-spoken Indian prime minister and his daughter share views on many issues, according to acquaintances, their public personas stand on opposite sides of the debate over the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

Related Posts Brimful of Amrit; Indian PM’s daughter says Bush personally authorized torture; Indian PM’s daughter works for the ACLU; President Singh

So it was kind of humorous to see the parallels between bad boy vice president, and our own Bollywood bad boy Salman Khan, who this week (thanks Bong Breaker) was found guilty of killing two blackbucks, a protected species of antelope, in the western state of Rajasthan in 1998, and sentenced to one year imprisonment. (link)

Salman Khan and Fans

Charges against Khan were pressed by the local Bishnoi community in Rajasthan where the killing took place… “The court can hang me. I am tired of such lengthy proceedings,” Khan told the court. The poaching case is not the actor’s first brush with the law. He is also facing trial in Mumbai (Bombay) in a 2002 hit-and-run case. One person was killed and three others injured when Khan allegedly drove into a group of homeless people sleeping on a pavement. Khan faces 10 charges, including causing death by negligent driving which carries two years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

It was unclear if Khan was drinking while he was allegedly poaching blackbuck, but he was I believe, driving under the influence when he allegedly hit and killed the homeless people. As an aside Vice President Cheney when asked if they had been drinking while hunting noted in his interview with Fox News correspondent Brit Hume: “No. You don’t hunt with people who drink. That’s not a good idea.”

In that same interview with Fox News, Cheney did later indicate that he had had a beer with lunch earlier in the day. Maybe I am dumb, but doesn’t that constitute drinking? Hell a few months ago, you could get arrested in Washington DC for drinking and driving after having only one drink.

A BBC correspondent says the actor, who has also been fined 5,000 rupees ($111) has a month’s time to appeal.

Try and understand, I had no forewarning. We swapped flirty texts, but she knew I plugged my profile in every port. She was on the same page, that minx. She had a Francophone mother. The French and Indian War raged within her as I spilled myself upon her Valley Forge. After all those unreturned volleys, I gave up hope. This dinner was to be my surrender. Looking at the bill I saw a Magna Carta indeed. And then she gave me The Look.

My wrist. Your polenta. Please excuse.

V-Day means Victory.

Thanks to tipster Simran, we have learned that there were more than incidents involving t-shirts at last weeks’s State of the Union Address (SOTU). This other incident involves an anonymous Indian-American, invited by Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings to be his guest at the SOTU, who was at the end of the address, surrounded by about ten law enforcement officers in the Capitol gallery, taken to a mysterious room in the Capitol, and questioned for an hour. Why, you ask? Not because he was wearing a t-shirt with a political statement, but according to Capitol Police chief Terrance W. Gainer, because police thought the man resembled someone on a Secret Service photo watch list. It took Capitol Police an entire hour to figure it out. I wonder if that isn’t excessively long. Shouldn’t security officials be able to identify an SOTU guest’s identity in less than an hour? After all, the man works with the Department of Defense and has a security clearance. On the other hand, we all do look the same anyway.

From the Time Magazine Article: But on the same evening that President Bush was lauding democracy and freedom, there was one other person in attendance whose rights were infringed upon. The man, who did not want his identity revealed after the disturbing incident, was a personal guest of Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings. He is a prominent businessman from Broward County, Florida who works with the Department of Defense-and has a security clearance. After sitting in the gallery for the entire speech, he was surrounded by about ten law enforcement officers as he exited the chamber and whisked away to a room in the Capitol. For close to an hour the man, who was born in India but is an American citizen, was questioned by the Police, who thought he resembled someone on a Secret Service photo watch list, according to Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer. Eventually, the police realized it was a case of mistaken identity and let him go. Gainer has assured Hastings that the Capitol Police, Secret Service and FBI will investigate why the man was detained for so long, and try to “sharpen our procedures.” But the man was “very, very scared” by the incident, says Fred Turner, a spokesperson for Hastings. On Tuesday night, he told the congressman that the experience was “maybe just the price of being brown in America,” Turner says.

It saddens me to think that at this point the positive in this story is, at least it was only an hour, and at least he was actually let go. Is it ok that this HAS BECOME the price of being brown in America?

Fofatlal Popatlal, Esq., at your service

Three days later a strange transformation came over me. From dawn to dusk I had an uncontrollable urge to spew my thoughts about everything: current events, movies, bowel movements. At first I jotted down my thoughts hurriedly in red and blue, but I soon realized that out of one pen flowed only truth and out of the other only lies. In desperation I downed a fifth of Black Label and passed out drooling on my laptop keyboard. When I awoke I found that I had been typing frantically in my sleep. It was all half-baked gibberish which posted itself on the Internets.

You know what happened next. The Mutineers knew I was a perfect fit. I could no longer fluff Salman’s combover between bouts of obsessive blogging, so he fired me over the phone from South America. Padma left him for me because I had bigger glasses and he was too self-effacing.

One day the earth opened up and swallowed her whole. It all came out in the investigation: the mole-men operating the mole-machines drilling the last big tunnel in New York. In a city of fury, the gods must be appeased. The last instant of her life was captured by a photojournalist who happened by, a stricken Medusa-haired goddess teetering on heels, the pavement rent behind her. That photograph is all I have, a sepia-tinted fame, a palimpsest of privacy, her final words my name: