I had previously written about Mrs Funnybones, here. It was a good book. But Twinkle Khanna has ventured into the bottomless abyss of Fiction in great style. And, in my opinion, The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad wins over Mrs Funnybones by leaps and bounds.
The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad is a collection of four short stories (or is it three short stories and a novella). The one absolutely great thing about The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad is that the characters in all the stories can be found in everyday life. Whether it be Noni Appa, Lakshmi or even Parul. There is a connection, an understanding of sorts that we can make with the characters.
Obviously, The Sanitary Man from a Sacred Land is the best of the lot. That doesn’t mean you can look over the other three stories. They are well written and great stories themselves. The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad is about a girl who becomes a legend for a simple idea that solved many problems. Salaam, Noni Appa is the story of woman finding love in her late 60’s. If the Weather Permits is a complicated story. It is about a girl whose love life is complicated and confused, ultimately ending in disaster. (If you are a sister, and have a sister, you will love Noni and Binni.) The characters in the book walk the talk and can be termed as feminist visionaries – the people who actually make a difference to their lives and others that surround them.
The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad is a fabulously written book. Four stories in some 200 odd pages took only a few hours to read; it is an unputdownable book. I wondered how The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad would be since Mrs Funnybones was more of a journal, but Twinkle Khanna has proven her worth as an author of fiction in her first work itself.
Though The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad is funny in places, there is a certain poise with which emotions, characters and overall plot are handled. It is a book that is not verbose, but manages to put its thoughts across succinctly.
The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad is a great book! Pick it up, you will find yourself devouring it.
I will leave you with this quote from The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad’s The Sanitary Man from a Sacred Land.
“I classify people into three categories, uneducated, a little educated and surplus educated. A little educated man like me has done this. Surplus educated people, what are you going to do for society?”
For those of you who haven’t heard about Arunachalam Muruganantham or his real story, here’s his Wikipedia page.
The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad by Twinkle Khanna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Frost At Midnite 