A Philadelphia Story - Harish Kamath - Book Review

 

                This is the story of an Indian couple who lives in the USA. The story takes us through the lives of Harish and Annie, when they meet and end up as husband and wife and finally have a baby. How the relationship progresses between both and what transpires between them forms the story.

                One thing that confused me at the start was if this was an autobiographical story as the main character in the book has the same name as the author. I wonder why the author had given his name to a misogynistic character. The writing was simple and the narrative was mostly fast-paced. I was able to complete the book in three sittings. The book is about 195 pages long and the length is apt without any unnecessary detailing. The handful of characters had good arcs written out for them. Harish is shown as misogynistic with a lot of complexes and inhibitions against the opposite sex. The racial profiling done on Rosa by Harish was slightly cringy and disturbing. Since most of the story goes through the mind of Harish, we can see the amount of misogyny he radiated and how self-centred his thoughts were even in the family. Each chapter proceeded in a non-linear way and that confused me at the start. It took a while to realize that. Annie and the child Kabir did not have much except when the story travelled through Annie's point of view. Since most of the story traversed from the point of view of Harish, we did not have a proper way of knowing how Annie and Rosa were. But towards the end, it became evident. The way that the family dynamics were brought out, the views of Harish on the opposite sex, Americans, and Indians all were well etched out. I liked the way this was brought out. This was a genre that I had not explored much. That did tire me out during the read. I did get bored at times but since the read was quick, it did not matter much.

                In short, a pretty quick read that can be covered in a single sitting or two. It was a bit like a typical Indian movie boring at times. But the interesting dynamics of the story make this a decent read.