Novel Review Of One Indian Girl- Feminism or 1 Crore Wedding?

          Chetan Bhagat’s new novel One Indian Girl is written from a woman’s point of view for the first time unlike from a man’s point of view in his earlier books. The novel’s protagonist Radhika Mehta is an investment banker working at Goldman Sachs earning a very high salary. Her high salary of 8 figure may be a dream for other women around her but her own mother finds her 8 figure salary as a threat to her chance of getting a good match. According to her mother, a woman earning high salary has a difficulty in getting a good match as no man will accept a woman earning higher than him. Her mother is afraid of revealing her own daughter’s real salary to the people coming to see her instead of being proud of her achievements but if it was a son in place of her daughter then she would have flashed his salary as the first thing to attract good matches for him. Men are mostly blamed for inequality and gender discrimination but its also many women who are responsible for the same. Radhika finally agrees to marry through arrange marriage after two failed relationships. Her first relationship with Debashish ended because he was not happy with his girlfriend earning thrice his salary and he wanted her to quit her job and take care of the house. Her second relationship with her married boss Neel who is 20 years older to her ended because he thought that she could either be a working woman or be a mother but not both at the same time. Radhika talked a lot about feminism but she succumbed to an arranged marriage.

            The following lines are the description of the back page of the novel:

Hi, I'm Radhika Mehta and I'm getting married this week. I work at Goldman Sachs, an investment bank. Thank you for reading my story. However, let me warn you.

You may not like me too much. One, I make a lot of money. Two, I have an opinion on everything. Three, I have had a boyfriend before. OK, maybe two.

Now if all this was the case with a guy, one might be cool with it. But since I am a girl these three things I mentioned don’t really make me too likeable, do they?

The above lines shows Radhika introducing herself to the readers. The tone in which Radhika is introducing herself is not sounding impressive. I don’t see any need for her to say people won’t like her for the above 3 points. She can say the 3 points anyway and let people decide if they like her or not instead of saying them as a warning. Just because she is a woman she don’t need to show off that she make a lot of money. After all, she is not the only woman in the world to make a lot of money.

            Radhika calls herself a feminist but hates the way her elder sister dresses up in a more feminine way and her choosing to be a homemaker instead of a working woman. There is no need for her to put down another woman that also her own sister to show herself as better. Feminism means respecting other women’s choices instead of putting them down. She calls herself a feminist but played a part in her married boss with 2 grown-up children who was 20 years older to her into cheating his wife by having an extra-marital affair with her. Okay, here the another woman can’t be entirely blamed than the man himself when he is the one cheating his wife in his marriage but she can’t call herself a feminist when she has no problem in playing part along with her boyfriend in breaking 3 hearts that is of her boyfriend’s wife and children.  She calls herself a feminist but gets waxing done to please her 1st boyfriend. Not only that but also she has the audacity to say that she will prefer getting lashed like women in Saudi Arabia over waxing. Does even know how much it pains to women getting whipped? She calls herself a feminist but she listens to everything her conservative mother forces her to do like hiding her real salary from the suitors or wearing Indian dress in the hotel area where no one else is dressing like her just because she is getting married in the same hotel after some days. She calls herself a feminist but during bachelorette party she thinks that girls act that they don’t like boy’s attention but in their mind they want their attention. Anyone remember Pink movie’s quote here that ‘NO means NO’?

            The most shocking part of the story is the girl who calls herself a feminist agrees not only to an arranged marriage to a stranger due to her family and relative’s pressure but also spending a huge amount of 1 crore rupees for her wedding with a Brijesh who works in Google. She agreed to marry a man whose name she mocked as she had a problem with it. She agreed to marry to please her family and relatives not being sure whether she wants the marriage or not. After spending 1 crore and almost all the wedding functions being over with a day left for the wedding, she calls off her marriage as she is not sure whether she wants to marry him or not which results in 1 crore rupees going waste. Its okay if she did not wanted to marry him but why she has to waste so much money on a wedding for which she is not sure? Just because she calls herself a feminist she thinks its okay to waste so much money to show off everyone that she earns so much salary that she can waste them without any problem. There are many more things shown in the book which will make us doubt what feminism actually means. The main blunder is that the book is named ‘One Indian Girl’ which means the story of 1 girl but Radhika generalizes every woman with same examples like ‘all women do this’, ‘all women love this’, ‘all women want this’ and so on. Where is the choice in all this?

            My final verdict is that if people are looking for a book on feminism then don’t go for this one and waste you money. This book only lures people with their feminism bait when actually there are hardly any feminism shown in this book.