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Where's the desi chick-lit?
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The women in modern day chick-lit are not depressed victims they are unexpected winners, who are having a blast.
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CHICK-LIT IS a phrase that is used in an ironic, post-modernist way by `chicks ` who have subverted the derogatory male usage of the term and co-opted it to name a genre of literature that still has the jury out on the final verdict. But chicks don't care. On the one hand women's writing has existed since the first glimmerings of documentation — poetry of Buddhist nuns from the 6th Century BC still exists.
Anne Radcliff, amongst women writers can take credit for the modern day novel written in 1780. Fighting the prevalent male view that women should only read elevating Greek classics, she created Gothic romances with heroines and dark haunted castles and romances that were widely read in 18th Century England. Women wrote under a variety of pseudonyms often male as they created a new reading public and became original best sellers.
In India, Bankim Chandra wrote what would perhaps classify as Gothic chick-lit in "Rajmohan's Wife" but he was not a woman, a pre-requisite qualifier for chick-lit. Nor were Tagore and Sarathchandra, who wrote popular early novels about women protagonists.
Tagore's Binodini and Thackeray's Becky Sharpe may work as poster girls of later chick-lit but they were created with a male gaze. Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer are original chicks. So is Erica Jong. But the actual term, chick-lit specifically is used for a genre of writing spawned by the wild and unpredictable success of "The Diary of Bridget Jones" — the grand mommy of all chick-lit. In the new chick-lit genre, gender issues are taken lightly. They are a step up from romances but a step down from revolution. The women in modern day chick-lit are not depressed victims they are unexpected winners.
A different genre
It is a genre that has established publishing houses like Simon and Schuster launching imprints specially to cater to the growing and hungry market for this kind of writing. Other imprints — Strapless and Red Dress cater to this trend once described as Mrs. Dalloway in Prada. It is a genre that defiantly states it will be what it is without pretension or intellectual puffery. It is urban, with the single woman as key protagonist and a dysfunctional lot of family, friends and workplace networks.
Bridget Jones is the original chick — fat, obsessive, romantic, witty, intelligent and has a charming self-deprecatory sense of humour. Even the jacket covers of these books are unapologetically femme in mint, flame and hot pink. They are aggressively Escada and Prada. They are about chicks taking on the modern world and having a blast. They cry, they weep, they howl, they laugh and get up and get on when it all gets too hopeless.
When in doubt retail therapy works and so do credit cards. Bridget Jones, Minty Malone, Nanny diaries, and so on have spawned an entire new range of chick writing. As a writer put it, the heroines are wounded, dysfunctional, celebratory and eternally optimistic. Marion Keyes is one such chick. Her "Sushi" for beginners, "Rachel's Holiday" and "Last Chance Salon" capture some of this urban angst. Her chicks are Irish and like to drink and generally do better than the men they leave behind in Dublin as they seek their fortunes in London or New York.
Minty Malone gets dumped by her fiancée and gets out of her grief by finding herself a new set of priorities. Which woman has not felt the angst of unrequited love or the zing of an SMS that said it all in the middle of a power point presentation? Which man too for that matter? The new age man is looking. So is the new age woman. For the soul mate who exists. Somewhere, some place, someday.
In cyberspace, in the pub down the road, at the next chanting session or on the next airline flight.
Chick-lit merely says it the way it is. With a lot of fun thrown in the search, warts and all. A cool cell phone, which is her lifeline, a neighbourhood pub, a coffee shop, a bunch of friends of all ages, a job in the media, a stage of divine discontent and yearning for the super-sized romance.
A cool male best friend, endlessly witty conversations on the state of urban living, loads of chic food — wheat grass, broccoli and muesli, a bit of sex and the city, and meeting the twenty something's worldview. Are we ready for our own desi brand of chick-lit?
GEETA RAO
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