When She Smiled by Ritoban Chakrabarti
There are days when you just want some simple food like rice and daal. Similarly, there are days when you just want to get home to watch a mindless rom-com. There is some comfort associated with both of the above things. ‘When She Smiled’, a coming of age story of a 15 year old and the happenings in his life in Class 11 over a period of few months, could have very well been that comfort book.
With a pretty plain premise which takes its own time to unfold, the book does not promise an ambitious premise or a classic for sure. Instead what it does is it tries to get into the psyche of a 15 year old, talks about his feelings, his insecurities, the harshness in his life, the joyful moments that matter to him, and more. With a major portion of the story set in Shimla, it is easy to sketch the protagonist Roy in our head with his mostly harmless enthusiasm. Throw in a girl (with a smile of course) and some mild natured romance with all the high school jealousy and indecisiveness, you have the story of ‘When She Smiled.’
Two things related to movies came to my mind when I was reading this book. One, we continue to accept the same old love stories which seem to be churned out by the dozen with little new to them except the exotic foreign locales that the songs are shot in. Why is it that we crave for a much better rendered love story in books? Is it because writing offers more spoke for expression? I’d really love to know. On that note, I was reminded of the romances in Gautam Menon’s movies (with all the indecisiveness of the female characters) and the Hindi movie Lootera when I was reading the last few pages in the book. Two, is everyone’s life mostly defined by that one person, or the lack of that person? Is it that you don’t end up with the person who really wanted to be with, and that disappointment fuels the active guy in you? Speaking for myself, it has mostly been my selfishness that has brought me to where I am and I am too selfish to let anyone else walk away with the credit for my success. This is exactly what did not go down well with me in the last page of the book. A smile does many things is what it seemed like the author’s last words wanted to be, to emphasise on the title. But no! It sure doesn’t.
With some clean language (I didn’t see the F word in a book after a long time), decent writing, and a time tested coming-of-age story, the author Ritoban Chakrabarti has his debut book ‘When She Smiled’ falling into the category of books that definitely has more to it than the title or the cover. I am only curious to see, like with any other new author, how Ritoban will step up his game with his next book (which I hope is not a love story).
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