Book: 13/52
The Illicit Happiness of Other People - Manu Joseph
My Rating: 4/5
Author and his book’s title attracted me this time :), I have read a few reviews of his other books and actually wanted to try one of them myself. I expected a pretty easy going book with tongue in cheek humour typical Indian kind or call it South Indian but how wrong it turned out to be. Although it starts on a lighter note but the way story develops and ends, blew up my mind totally especially the last 100 pages. A typical Malayali Christian family stuck in Madras in the early 90s with two kids Unni Chako and his younger brother Thoma Chako followed by their mother Mariamma who happens to be an economics post graduate but serving as a house-wife and her anarchist husband Ousep Chako who is good for nothing but somehow ploughs along in his Journalist job. One fine day something leads Unni to take his own life by jumping from their third floor terrace, and the intriguing story starts when Ousep leaves everything aside to find why his 17 year old son did what he did. Gradually he covers a few clues in the form of Unni’s comics that he was writing, he hides them from his wife so he could uncover the truth behind his son’s death. In the quest of uncovering the truth he becomes enemy number one of all the kids he wanted to grill or parents of those who happened to be his son’s best friends. How he uncovers and what was the final reason is disclosed on the very last page of the book much to my shock, surprise and heart-break too.
There are subplots in the story too in the form of Mariamma’s flash back from her childhood who she unfortunately narrates to her son before his death and he vows to take a revenge on her behalf. Her suffering is next level because of her drunkard good for nothing husband who threatens of committing a suicide and how she handles it with her younger son in toe was totally amazing. There is so much going on in the initial 250 pages and Author captures the then life in the Madras neighbourhood so beautifully that he actually took me back in time to my own younger self back in the day and I could draw so many parallels from my own life with my parents and siblings. Unni and Thoma’s story terrifically sounds so genuine and doesn’t read like a fiction at all. Especially the love and sensual angle in it, couldn’t believe that someone could write it so beautifully as what a teenager goes through in real life. You’ve got to read the book to know more as I cannot tell you anymore without disclosing too much. On top of all that it reads like a proper thriller or I can say at least most of it, till the point where the story takes a psychological turn and that’s when it faltered at least for me with so much science thrown in the last 100 odd pages and with that unpredictable yet a simple ending from my point of view. I expected a bomb blast in the end which never comes but having said that I will maintain that it takes nothing away from the story as it still was a 350+ paged book that I had to finish in flat four sittings as I just couldn’t keep myself in the suspense.
On a side note, this became another book from my recent reads which talks a lot about meaningless life and its futility or man’s search for a purpose or deeper meaning of life. Unfortunately I am not picking these books to understand the meaning of life or any deeper theory as such but somehow they all touch that topic one way or another, some in a very shallow way but this one takes it to a totally new level, if you have read it, I am sure you will agree with me as the kind of enlightenment that Unni Chako gets finally was something which made me actually think and take a note of. I was like WHOA, I didn’t expect this from the book or the Author or the story at least that he was telling.
Do let me know if you have read this one or any other from Manu Joseph which you would like to recommend. I am definitely looking forward to a few more from him in very near future.
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