Book Review: Amreekan Desi by Atulya Mahajan

Not every book makes me happy to review but how can I not end up with a happy note after reading a hilarious book that made me laugh for quite few hours. I thank Readers Cosmos and Atulya Mahajan for giving me a review copy of Amreekan Desi.

Book: Amreekan desi

Author: Atulya Mahajan

ISBN: 978-81-8400-395-6

Publisher: Random House India

No. of pages: 308

Cover Designer: Saurav Das

Blurb:

"Akhil Arora, a young, dorky engineer in Delhi, can’t wait to get away from home and prove to his folks that he can be on his own. Meanwhile in a small town in Punjab, Jaspreet Singh, aka Jassi, is busy dreaming of a life straight out of American Pie. As fate would have it, they end up as roommates in Florida. But the two boys are poles apart in their perspectives and expectations of America. While Akhil is fiercely patriotic and hopes to come back to India in a few years, Jassi finds his Indian identity an uncomfortable burden and looks forward to finding an American girl with whom he can live happily ever after. 

 Laced with funny anecdotes and witty insights, Amreekandesi chronicles the quintessential immigrant experience, highlighting the clash of cultures, the search for identity, and the quest for survival in a foreign land."

Review:

Amreekan Desi with the tagline Masters of America is a hilarious book which talks about the life of Indians in America. I say it is a must read book for those who dream about the Land of Hollywood. Well the title and the cover page of the book give you enough hints about the story. I wonder why the cover designer did not bring the US flag into the picture. But even without that, the cover talks more of America. I can see how the author has enjoyed writing this book by the way he has tried to pen down his experience out there in the US.

The story travels around the two protagonists from India who travels all the way to their dreamland. Akhil wanted to prove his neighbors that he has got a bright future waiting there in America and he is much concerned about it. Jaspreet, on the other hand, is longing to meet those hot bikinis in the beaches of America. These two parallel minded Indians are destined to share the same university and also same apartment in the US.

Jaspreet aka Jazz, who is already changed into an American even before getting his visa, finds nothing but disappointment in his dreamland. All his tricks fail to work and it adds humour to the story. But his change over towards the ends was something that I never expected. While Jazz face many twist and turns in his life there, Akhil’s part in the story travels in a same focused path. His father’s stay with him for 7 days is the best of all. His love with Nandita and the steps he takes to get his love back is well addressed.  Other characters that traveled along the story made the trip to America interesting.

Not every 300 pages book could be completed in a short span at one go unless it has some interesting additives in it and Amreekan Desi has got lot of additives in it. To say in short Hilarious, awesomely narrated and intriguing. The author has brought true colours of both the countries with his words.

To conclude my review, I would say that Mr. Atulya Mahajan has done an appreciable work in his first book. Through a simple language he has managed to produce a neat work. The narration stands plus for him though I felt he could have worked more on the flow of the story. The 308 pages book seemed to be quite elaborate in few parts and a little rework can be done to lessen the pages. Overall it was a good and funny trip to Amreeka. I would give 3.5 out of 5 for this book. I wish him all the best for his future endeavors and I’m definitely looking forward to his next work.

About the Author:

Atulya Mahajan is the author of amreekandesi.com, a popular Indian satire blog. Born and raised in Delhi, he moved to the US in 2004 for his masters. During his time in the US, he started his blog to chronicle the lives of Indians living abroad, and this book is the culmination of that vision. He also writes occasional humour columns for the Times of India, Crest Edition. When not busy writing hilarious pieces, Atulya works at an investment bank as a technologist. To know more about him, you can follow his blog amreekandesi.com

Or you can email him on contact@amreekandesi.com. He is also on Facebook, www.facebook.com/amreekandesi. 

“This Book Review is a part of The Readers Cosmos Book Review Program.” To get free books visit thereaderscosmos.blogspot.com  

You can buy the book from Flipkart, Amazon and Homeshop18. 

Happy Reading :-)