Book review of Sonia Bahl's 'The Spectacular Miss' by Revathi Raj Iyer

Sonia Bahl
The Spectacular Miss
Fiction
New Delhi: Fingerprint. 2016.
ISBN: 978-81-7599-341-9
Pages: 234. Price: Rs 250.

A ‘not so spectacular’ chick-lit with an overdose of humour

Sonia Bahl’s debut fiction novel, “The Spectacular Miss” loaded with chutzpah and wit fails to impress although it exhibits a skilful portrayal of characters. I am not quite sure if the author intended to whip up a chick-lit or it turned out to be so, but I believe that just as all other fiction, this genre requires copious imagination and style to make it a page turner, more so because it targets a selective audience. Humour is a pleasant ingredient which the author has sprinkled too generously, a bit cheesy at times; but that alone cannot compensate the lack of surprise or build-up in the story line itself.

Sonia Bahl who resides in Singapore, describes herself as one who stumbled through school, forgot to attend college and ended up in the best place in the world, writing ads for an advertising agency. Born and brought up in Calcutta, she has lived and worked in Jakarta, Miami, Johannesburg and Brussels. She quit her job as Executive Creative Director and started a rejection filled screen writing sojourn in the US. She has also written screenplays, magazine columns and movies all of which partly raise one’s expectations as she ventures into the literary field. Needless to say, it may take a few trial and errors to dominate this popular genre; and from that perspective the author’s first attempt is acceptable albeit with a pinch of salt.

“The Spectacular Miss” revolves around Nira, an eight-year-old girl, who is obsessed with being a boy for no compelling reason except being unable to pee standing up or having the liberty to pee in circles. I liked the ingenuity with which the author has coined a name for the protagonist Nira, being the first two letters of her brothers Rahil and Nikhil. Till the age of five she is at the mercy of her mother who dresses her up like a baby-doll. The rebel in her starts at six when she messes up her hair with scissors on hand. This marks the beginning of her tryst with boyhood.

A tomboyish Nira is part of a bro club, deft at karate chops, perpetually bruised and smeared with Mercurochrome that she even mistakes her first period for that orange liquid left unflushed in the toilet. Her adventures or misadventures, truancy and boy fights fill up the pages interspersed with few distasteful extremities such as when her mom-stitched knicker gives way precariously hanging between her knees when she is sprinting in a school race or when she is faced with a dilemma and disgust of having touched Josie’s thing. The analogy that the author comes up with the body part resembling a sausage, just for laughs, might shake up hot dog lovers. I wish the author had diverted her imagery in the mid parts where tedium and predictability starts to creep in.

The friendship between Nira and Bir Narayan, a buddy of Rahil, his utter disbelief that this eight year old is actually a girl, his appreciation at her first whistle, his naming her Nero, the way he steps in to help Nira overcome the knicker episode, sneaking her in as jockey at the races all of which seal a long lasting bonding between the two. Enter the vivacious Dipika Sen, a la Bo Derek, in Bir’s life resulting in sudden holy matrimony. Nira’s inability to cope up with her own hormones, Nick’s jabs and to Bir’s infrequent visit to her place reach a crescendo that drives her to make an impulse decision to become a doctor and off she goes to the UK. Bir still keeps zipping back and forth to keep the friendship alive and intact, loyal to his wife all the same. Somewhere along the line, Nick gets married and so does Rahil. Omer enters Nira’s life and as one would expect turns out to be gay perhaps to not stir the emotions of Nira, who is going through the rigours of becoming a doctor. Omer fills up the times when Nira is in need of a friend and craves for home cooked food. Her whimsical nature is not a passing thing but seems to hang on to her personality even when she transforms as a young adult and into womanhood.

The mid parts of the book are quite predictable and flagging in its ability to sustain interest. Humour is a continuous vein throughout the book to the point where it stops to tickle and makes one wish for something more. The story stretches and screams for a twist and turn. At that juncture, the author has thankfully risen with an unexpected twist, not quite befitting the character and shaping up of Nira, and thereafter the story picks up to a touching yet predictable finish. Let me not give away more as the readers might want to grab this book to form their own judgement. The buzz is that this book is being considered for a Bollywood movie. It is quite possible that a failed book could turn out to be a movie worth a watch, under good direction if made racy and interesting from start to finish.

{Published in Muse India - Sep/Oct, 2016}

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