The Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mathur

I am not satisfied with this short-novel which I randomly picked from book-fair, Vashi last week. Maybe I could enjoy more if I hadn't seen movies like American Pie series and their desi adaptation Ye Kya Ho Raha Hai. I find many people admiring this book, even the print media and all. But I kept on thinking what's special in this book apart from a very straightforward comic story? I started this book with no expectations, the criteria of buying it was its size, only 246 pages! I didn't even started reading the book, one of my boss told me that there is a very famous letter in the book. The letter is written by an Indian (just reached America) to his younger brother. This is what made me excited to read the book and provoked many expectations...

The book starts with the letter itself. Gopal, protagonist of this novel is from a very small town Jajau, somewhere in interiors of Madhya Pradesh, has just reached America and writing this letter to his younger brother. You must be thinking, what's so special about this letter? Its funny! The guy, Gopal's English seem to have just one tense, Present Continuous! He is totally unaware of American English, their special vocabulary and their special meanings. He like peanuts and appreciate the security person at the exit while he is shouting 'Nuts, totally nuts.' He feels, this guy knows that I like peanuts. :-) Book is full of such estimates, guesses Gopal makes. Gopal's understanding on things, his way of talking, his town, family, his Hair Oil Factory and especially his 'and like that', 'all that stuff', 'things like that' and other suffixes for every sentence made the book a bit special.

He went America for studying and he did or at least tried to do everything but study. From day one in America, he was told that every girl here is America is desperate to get laid. Once Mr. Anurag Mathur started this American Girl Philosophy, he continuously used it till last page. Girls, girls, and just girls. As per Mr. Mathur, everybody in America is obsessed with sex. Our Gopal seems to be more desperate than the other Americans out there. He gets a good friend in terms of Randy, another research scholar at University.

I found a problem with Mr. Anurag's writing (it might be a problem with me too!). Whenever he tried to elaborate Gopal's mind, he made me lost. Many time I couldn't figure out where is the story going and what is the context of this elaboration here. In the short-novel of merely 250 pages, he managed to talk about America's white-black problem, poverty problem and of course girls and sex problem. He talked about Indians-turned-Americans who prefer to be called as Andy (Anand!).

Maybe I read this book very late, I could have read it in early 90s in order to appreciate more. Today every second sex-comedy movie seems to have same ingredients. I was wondering whether this must be an inspiring book for many of such movies/books. Read this book for Gopal's letters and his funny English. Nothing else to read. I didn't like the book very much, however overall it gets 2.5/5 from this novice reader for being very funny.

Book Details:
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The Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mathur,
Publisher: Rupa Co.
Price: INR 76
Pages: 246
Binding: Mass Paperback
ISBN: 8171670407