Cyrus Broacha
Random House India
Rs. 199
When you think of funny-man Cyrus Broacha, the image of MTV Bakra comes to mind. His crazy antics designed to fool the ‘aam admi’ has been a laugh riot. So when this comedian decides to write a book, one can only expect Broacha’s unparalleled humour to pop right out of the page. His debut novel Karl Aaj Aur Kal didn’t fly off the shelves due to his one dimensional jokes that got boring and redundant as the story progressed. With his second, the hope was that history wouldn’t repeat itself.
Well, as far as the story goes this time around, there is none. And about history repeating itself, time will ultimately tell. But the truth of the matter is, I had to push myself to finish reading the book. There were bits that had the Cyrus charm but over all, the book was a drag and one could tell that he was trying too hard to be funny. I wonder why he chose to divide the book into sections since it really didn’t seem to add any substance to the narrative. Most of the letters in this collection seem made up to say the least and there’s of course, his commentary interspersed which seemed superfluous at best.
An honest opinion would be that the only saving grace the book does have is the very honest foreword by Cyrus’ long-time partner in crime – Kunal Vijayakar. His opening sentence itself should set the tone of what one can expect from this book.
My Take
Cyrus fans might just appreciate this book but people who really do enjoy cleverly crafted humour should steer clear. The book is a huge disappointment.
By Charlene Flanagan
