I have problems with Shobhaa De(not the book, that comes later):
a. She thinks she is to India what Candace Bushnell, (Hope I spelt I that right)the creator of Sex and The City is to America, she is obviously wrong.
b. I really enjoy a lot of modern Indian chick lit but all her fiction books are about small town girl coming to big bad town and having lots of sex or a rich girl falling down from grace and having lots of sex. Her books read like a bad(very bad) Jackie Collins novel.
c. She - not being a splendid / spectacular writer herself criticizes other, better writers say Khushwant Singh. Yes, people might think he is a pervert and all but Train to Pakistan is a great novel(atleast according to me), his translations of Sikh scriptures is good and he is the man who bought Umrao jaan’s translation into the realm of knowledge of Indian readers in English. Shobhaa(extra a courtesy numerology) De doesn’t have anything to credit except corny novels with a skewed percetion of women. In one of her more well known books(Bollywood Nights), her protagonist is an actress who spends no time acting, talking sense or showing character development BUT guess what, has intercourse throughout the book, all the time, with a myriad number of people .
d. She was Chetan Bhagat before Chetan Bhagat(sorry CB)i.e. capitalizing on people’s love for voyeuristic unreal fast easy reads and benefiting from it commercially! That’s where the similarity ends . Chetan Bhagat again I stress is better and I am saying that even though I dislike all his books(really except for Five point someone).
e. She started the whole filmy spicy gossip thing with stardust and now that is all one sees on most news channels and magazines, half the time anyway .
f. She rarely has praise for anymore and has been known to call any bollywood actress/ model within range of garnering publicity ugly! Talk about maturing with age! And gushing about Rahul gandhi in every alternate news column doesn’t help much either.
g. She reminds me of Meryl Streep in The Devil wears Prada, only Indian and worse.