Happimess By Biswajit Banerji | Book Review

As writing a children’s book is not a child’s play; writing a satire is not a task to be taken lightly. Only a witty, clever, well-informed and a sensitive person can write a convincing and enjoyable satire.

Possibly, that’s why we find only a few authors contributing to this genre.

So, when recently we came to know about Biswajit Banerji and his work Happimess – falling is the same genre, we were curious to explore it.

We are really glad for having an opportunity to read this clean and enjoyable satire. We found it worth reading and sharing our unbiased review for the with you all. So, here we go…

Reading this book reminded me of some books we got a chance to read:

• Corpokshetra: Mahabharata in MBA Yug by Deepak Kaul
• Dissected by Naveen Kakkar
• Lankapati Ka Loktantra by Kamal Upadhyay

Let us start with the cover page of the book.

Book Cover:

The cover page serves as a gateway to the virtual world explored within the book, and thus is responsible to create the first impression of the book. A large number of browsers tend to pick a book from the display and explore its blurb before actually buying / reading the same.

As you can see, the cover page of – Happimess – is designed using cheerful colors with comparatively lighter tones of the same. This way it remains faithful to the genre and content within, and soothing to eyes.

The illustrations of various characters and incidents from the book in cartoon like manner, the funny fonts used for the title, author’s name and tagline, adds to the attractiveness of the cover.

I found it a thoughtful and nicely designed cover page.

Views And Reviews:

Usually we talk about the book plot and our views for the same in two distinguished segments. But, for this book we are merging both the segments due to various reasons. It is a short story collection and revealing plot for all of them will lead to spoilers, which we want to avoid as far as possible. However, of course, it is not possible to avoid them all, please read on with the consent.

Spread over in 13 chapters, Happimess, comprises of 13 short stories, unequal in length.

I like the way the book is started (and dedicated). In fact, the initial segment introducing us to Humour and Satire exposes us to the talents of the author.

Here are a couple of quotes from the same:

It has been quite a journey for humour and satire to gain ground really. Very long ago, humour and satire grew on trees as juicy fruits.
– – – – – – – – – – –
When consumed, the fruits evoked contrasting emotions.

The first story about electricity is quite tickling. The way the author has humanized the electrical gadgets is intriguing. And, yes the protagonist (of the story)’s experiences with an “iron” makes makes him “iron-man”(!) in a different sense.

Electrical home appliances have never been known to possess genuine human qualities. But long association with the humans, I presume, can lead to not-so-civilized influences on select breed of appliances.
– – – – – – – – – – –
I had a soft-corner for the iron and initially I took the flickering in good spirit, considering it a friendly wink from an old, trusted companion.

And it is not all about just the fun element. In the same story, you will find the ultimate philosophy of life as well.

in fact, the mother of all existence – the universe itself had begun with a flicker and is likely to end up with a flicker as well.

The story focused on a farewell speech is quite humourous as well. The way it hits hard to our nature (with exceptions, of course), makes it more impact-ful.

The listeners seemed absolutely uninterested in my words of praise for another man. They were engrossed in better, time-tested ways to waste their time like frantically flipping through their smartphones, discussing their next increments, prospects of departmental promotions and grew progressively impatient over the delayed arrival of tea and snacks.

Yes, true, when we attend a ceremony, all we care is about our own food and drink, and if we get a few words in our praise, it is a bonus for us. But, how dare someone else can be spoken good about, right? And in this, rather funny story, can you expect the interesting lines like:

It hurts to retire, it hurts even more to retire prematurely but it hurts most to be retired-hurt which means being pushed into a state where it no- longer hurts, rather it burns, bites, maims and mutilates and you are not even allowed a whisper.

I like the food-philosophy of the author:

For many, the idea of consuming adulterated food is worse than death. They don’t understand that given the way our bodies have adjusted themselves irrevocably to adulteration, pure foodstuff can really harm us, causing life-threatening diseases or even death.

And, to add to that, there is even harder hitting conclusion:
He made the same mistake that the world in general frequently commits – thinking that farewell and welfare are brothers in arms and always go hand in hand.

The following lines about fighters, reminded me of a well-respected Gujarati author, Jyotindra Dave’s work (in a different contex).

…people fleeing from someone they can barely stand, actually run the risk of embroiling themselves in far greater danger than what they are running away from.
– – – – – – – – – – –
The fighters fight on an equal footing, are totally engrossed and don’t bother about the onlookers.

And the author adds the masala of satirical punch over it:

Their practiced moves indicate that they are indeed battle-hardened, probably with rich domestic experiences.

Here are a few more lines from the book that I found interesting.

Normally I would go by my first impulse on any matter and I’d be lying if I say those were always civilized in nature.

Thanks to his indecisiveness, the move got aborted and he was glad for that because the stupid world was never really going to realise the grave fallouts of any move beginning with the wrong foot.

All said and done, it is mighty difficult to fend- off someone who is such a formidable repository of knowledge and facts.

Rats could have been the most beautiful creatures without their ability to traumatize, bite and irritate.

I could barely look at my car, if it still qualified to be one. The roof, it seemed, had been fired upon from a Kalashnikov from inside and the body blasted by a rocket launcher from outside. The fellow, it transpired, had left the scene of carnage immediately.

The book has some proof reading errors like:

Ask locals what they pay and refuse to pray more.

“Icanseethatyoudon’tvalueoldcustomersmuch.”

There are some lines which are fantastic but also suffers such minor errors, which you may want to consider as “wordplays”.

Foemales are chronic hagglers by birth. They can haggle even on the moon, in the dessert, underground and in the sea. Traders greatly fear the impact of their visit on their balance-shits.

Hagglers must leave their shelf-respect and pride outside when they enter any shop for haggling. Only then can they come out victoriass with smiling faeces and be successpool.

In Kindle edition the formatting is not upto the mark. From the table of contents to the page breaks, there are things, you wish, could have taken better care of.

If you want me pick only a couple of lines form the book, obviously, I will pick the following, referring the love-hate relationship shared by almost every couple!

A fractured self-respect is a nasty, festering thing to have, especially if it is triggered by Any unreasonable behavior, except of domestic origin, drives me mad.

A large number of readers will like this “observations made by the better–half” segment 🙂

The author has defined the characters in depth without making them look boring. Writing short stories is always a challenging task, as you don’t get much time to introduce your characters or story backdrop. Making the attributes of the character appear elaborated in such small span requires literary skills. And, I found Biswajit has mastered it. Looking forward to the future works of the author.

The quotes above must have given you a fair idea about the content of the book and whether it suits your reading preferences. And yes, the book title is a really interesting wordplay, which gives you a hint of what to expect from it.

Summary:

I enjoyed reading this book thoroughly. For kindle EBook readers, better formatting is expected. It is a light read with a dose of satire. If you like reading such books, you shouldn’t miss “Happimess”. Happy reading :).

ThinkerViews Rating:

Around 7.5 stars out of 10.
(With better EBook formatting it is worth 8 to 8.5 stars out of 10).

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy - Happimess by Biswajit Banerji - Paperback - Amazon IN
• Buy - Happimess by Biswajit Banerji - Kindle EBook - Amazon IN

Over To You:

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