I recently checked out How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life at Crossword, a Barnes & Noble-like Indian chain with Barista-style upstairs cafés. The book is chick lit for teens, and the Indian cover interprets that so literally it shows a girl carrying both strappy heels and a stack of textbooks.
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UK/India cover |
The cover model for the UK/India edition could be desi, but her look is more toward the white end of the spectrum. Nor is Opal a common desi name. If I recall correctly (and I may be wrong — will double-check), there’s no mention of Mehta’s desi origins on the cover or in the official blurb (though the blurb for industry buyers is more accurate). Her desi-ness has been excised as neatly as was the turbaned actor from the Life Aquatic poster. To a casual browser it would almost certainly seem that Opal Mehta was just another white character, albeit with a funny last name.
I’m of two minds about this. In one sense it’s wonderful and somewhat subversive to have a desi character where her ethnicity isn’t made an issue. But in this story, surely Mehta’s upper-middle-class, post-’65 desi American-ness is a key reason why her parents are obsessive about her academic life. The plot summary reads like a parody of Asian American parental pushiness. That she’s desi seems integral to the plot.
Not that this is the author’s fault. New authors have famously little say over the trade dress of the product, though later Rushdie books have conspicuously avoided sari covers. (One of the worst: a hardcover of former BBC India correspondent Mark Tully’s book The Heart of India; it has that overbroad title, a garish, hot pink cover, a woman in a sari and a border smothered in garlands.)
The narcissist principle, the desire to interact with people similar to you, drives a lot of book covers and advertising and a lot of this blog. It can be limiting, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. It only becomes objectionable when the work is misrepresented, the work caters to Neanderthal conquest fantasies, or the aspirations being pitched are inherently colonialist.
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U.S. cover: Mughal arches, fabric theme |
The principle is so widely understood that when it’s violated, it’s worth decoding why. In Bombay, ad campaigns often include random white people. A clothing campaign currently features a preppy-looking white guy in suit and tie smiling sheepishly at two hunched-over grandmas in saris. Another shows white people hovering pre-coitally around ice cream. This puzzled me at first. Then it struck me that white models are used in two kinds of advertising: aspirational and sexual.
White models are used in luxury ads because many Indians still aspire to wealthy, civilized, English babu-dom. Conversely, they’re used in bikini ads and ads with sexual double entendres because Western culture is associated with louche sexuality. Using white models both conveys a sheen of sex appeal and lets you show more skin than many Indian models would be comfortable with. It’s a kind of reverse colonialism, and it’s the same schizophrenia about Western liberalism you see in Saudi Arabia, only to a lesser degree.
Related post: Waris’ star turn, The subway series, Buzzword bingo, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, Girls, Girls, Girls
Using white models both conveys a sheen of sex appeal and lets you show more skin than many Indian models would be comfortable with
sure, without white ppl where would we get porn? asian porn is only appropriate as a “change up.”
The narcissist principle, the desire to interact with people who are similar to you, drives a lot of book covers and advertising and a lot of this blog.
yeah, but there’s a happy medium. how hoppin’ a party that’s just a schlong-fest 🙂
“…the Indian cover interprets that so literally it shows a girl carrying both strappy heels and a stack of textbooks.”
I thought it was rude to have your feet or shoes touch books and stationery etc. I always got told off by my parents and to this day make sure I don’t, but then again…a white model…hmmmmm….
Also the name of the author should sorta give the hint that it’s at least written by an Indian if not the character herself is…
Difficult to get mangoes, curries, elephants and the whole arranged marriage rigmarole into the story with a title like that :p
Has anyone here read the book?? The amazon review gives it 1 on 5.
Nice post. So why are you a techie? I imagine the stuff under your mattresses wasn’t porn, it was Rushdie novels and journals on literary criticism…
the LA times gave this book a bad review. likely will not buy/read it.
Here is a desi review from a random dude:
Pathetic attempt at chick lit…, April 6, 2006 Reviewer: A reader (london, england)
About a third of the novel is product placement for various make up brands, deisgners and teen TV series. the rest is full of stereotype characters stolen form The OC. The only original parts of the plot and its’ USP (ie how an Indian girl in the US copes with teen-mall culture) is incorrect. For a start the Mehta family would be Gujratis-not from Chennai where Kaavya’s own family probably come from. Secondly the names of the uncles and aunts are stolen from Bollywood film stars (Reka btw is a South Indian name not something a Mehta would use). Kali is the hindu goddess of destruction and death-which parent would call their child that? it’s like a WASP parent naming their daughter Medusa! the hindi is also incorrect: case in point when one of her aunts is upset at being called a ‘houri’. Kaavya dahling ‘houri’ is usually preced by the word ‘Jannat’ which means heaven-houri’s are not the Hindi phenetic equivalent of the english word whore but rather ‘houris’ are the most perfect, beautiful women of heaven. why would any woman who knows hindi complain about that? I think asian parents will read this book and see what happens when a young girl has completely lost her own culture and thinks American culture can be found in a teen magazine. throw in a few quotes from a physics book and u think this is a novel? It’s very bad chick lit and both Kaavya and her publishers should be ashamed to be associated with it. God help us if there’s a sequel-more inconsistent and inocrrect views of asian culture will abound! Bend it like beckham worked because the Asian cultural aspects were so correctly portrayed along with women’s football. Kaavya should be sued by The OC and Vogue and Elle and every other fashion and teen magazine. she stole everything!
Thanks, and sadly enough… 🙂
Transmission by Hari Kunzru, now there’s a nice novel minus mangoes.
I wonder if she chose Mehta because it’s less visually (and otherwise) threatening than say…Balasubramaniam, Mukherjee or Ahluwalia. Compared to those, “Mehta” is a much more friendly version of ethnic. Maybe “Mehta” was the only desi name which would work for this situation. Would people pick up this book if the protag had been named “Opal Patel”? Would “Opal Shah” summon thoughts of Iran, a country we’re hardly fans of? I’m trying to think of other ubiquitous desi surnames (paging: Razib), the only others which come to mind are “Singh” and maybe “Gandhi” or “Reddy”. Wrt the last two, “Gandhi” is obviously out of the question and “Reddy” doesn’t sound brown enough to the uninitiated. As for “Opal”…I have no idea why or where that comes from and I have fleeting hopes that it’s explained in the book. It’s not like she’s Malayalee, that would explain everything. 😉
Maybe it’s because it’s easier to pronounce (and spell) from a non-desi point of view, or at least that may be the assumption.
I skipped thru the book which obviously isn’t geared towards me but was curious about the hype. I found so much verbal mayhem it could only have come from a young confused mind. 20 words were used where 2 would have been sufficient. It was very Disney Hillary Duffish with much too much Sex and the City imagery thrown in for good measure. Shit I didn’t discover or know of Pradas till I started earning. Maybe high school kids are different now. There was some smart and sometimes misplaced political pop culture mentions in the book as well, thrown in for good measure.
But the one thing that annoyed (the desi in) me the most about the book was the lack of research that went into the names/cultures/background of Opal Mehta. The language wasn’t just confused it was misplaced. A non desi wouldn’t notice, heck even many desis may not notice, especially with that genra readers. Kaavya is obviously at least half South Indian (Viswanathan) so the Gujju stuff thrown in didn’t always jive.
OK an aside…this perked my interest when I looked up what Crossword was:
Manish, There’s a good bookstore called “Strand Books” somewhere north of Flora Fountain in central Bombay you might also check out.
It’s not anywhere near as big as the Strand in New York, but there’s an impressive collection nonetheless. (But no cafe.)
As for Opal Mehta, I’m waiting for the sequel: How Opal Mehta Got Married, Settled Down, and Got Boring Again. That’s more my speed 😉
Amardeep – you forgot the middle book “Where Opal Mehta decides to whine endlessly about whether to get an arranged marriage”
or….the end to the trifecta: how opal mehta online dated, went to marriage conventions, and ultimately opted to adopt a child on her own… the calista flockhart sydrome.
i’m guju and i have a guju aunt whose name is rekha shrug actually i know a lot of north indian rekhas. or does reka not equal rekha.
shrug
although i do agree that naming someone “kali” is a little weird.
I haven’t read the book … but do you think the reviews are a bit harsh because the reviewers aren’t in the target age group? I’m assuming none of us are in high school, so I’m sure we won’t be able to relate to her characters. I’d love to hear opinions from high schoolers.
Can I say how disturbingly skinny the girls on the cover(s) are? Check out the elbow on the model in the UK cover.
Replying to Anna’s comments, I think Mathew wouldn’t be bad at all. Opal Mathew kinda sounds cool too ;), But then it will make her a Malayalee or you will atleast think she is Malayalee.
Regarding names, I think times are different now and you see very less traditional Indian Names used, although some do like to have traditional names just so they can carry their Indian Heritage over. I haven’t read the book, but if the character is being set in a location lets say outside India or even Modern cities in India comming from an upper middle clas family, the name Opal fits right in as it depicts the upper middle class “Modern” indian family’s desire to be ultra modern and name their kids “cool” western names.
You also have to consider the author here. Amercian Desi from Harvard, I think she is still in her teens, who got $500000 and a two book contract even before she was ever published. She has big shoes to fill and I am sure she has made the book as interesting as possible and made it appealing to Mass audience other than just Desi’s. She even claimed both her works will be “fictional”. She will definitely add in experiences from life which usually every author does, especially being so young she has will definately have to rely on her personal experiences and take on life, but I dont think the book will depict her life per say.
Isn’t there a law that limits the number of chick-lit genre books that can be published in a year. Well, there should be.
The hostility against her here is weird. It’s just chick lit for teens. Why all the anger and dissing? She’s too stereotypically Indian. She’s not Indian enough. She’s this. She’s that. You guys are worse than TOI.
And the analysis of the Opal Mehta cover is completely paranoid, in my opinion. Maybe it’s not Opal Balasubramanian because, uh, that’s not the character’s name.
Are you going to change your last name because it’s not difficult enough for Westerners to pronounce?
Chill pill, people.
Nope. It’s just a name.
I read the book a while ago. The book is very one dimensional–but no different or better or worse from other books in the teen chick-lit genre (i.e. Gossip Girl, The Clique, The A-List). Opal’s Indian-ness is, IMO, not integral to the plot. She could have been any girl of any race with obsessive parents. The only time her Indian-ness is relevant is when the author needs to drop words like “sari” or “biriyani.”
I do, however, think there were one or two scenes in the book that were interesting, and I wonder if that was the direction she wanted to go with the book, rather than the “packaged” version she ended up with. (I’ve read in several articles that she just pitched the idea and wrote a frist draft, and that the “book” was shaped in-house at Alloy [her packaging company] or Little, Brown [her publisher]).
P.
Many businesses in Chennai are owned by Gujaratis and Marwaris. I agree that Mehta family can be Gujarati (or Punjabi) but why cant they be from Chennai?? Whats the big deal?
I agree that Mehta family can be Gujarati (or Punjabi) but why cant they be from Chennai??
Yes, Why not even Parsi from Mumbai (example, Zubin Mehta)?
I do agree with ANNA on why a phonetically simple name was chosen for a chick-lit novel? You do not want high schoolers get to caught up in difficult details? There is nothing wrong with tactic though? In every profession – we make things for easy consumption – even in Science.
kai kya,
u go girl!
Can I say how disturbingly skinny the girls on the cover(s) are? Check out the elbow on the model in the UK cover.
I concur.
I read somewhere that Steven Spielberg has acquired the movie rights for this novel.
I’m in agreement with Pooja (#22) and Kai Kya (#21) – it just chick lit, TEEN chick lit at that (which, after working in the children’s/young adult section of a bookstore I can say with authority, is depressingly bad.) I don’t think that we should even hope to expect much of it.
if you want a truly horrific teen/chick lit book, try Born Confused, which as i found, flipping thru the book on a break one day, is rife with over generalizations, bad puns (DJ Gulab Jammin’ for instance), and all over bad prose.
maya:
agree COMPLETELY with ‘born confused..’ that book was crap…i think i read 10 pages and had enough of the stupid puns.. pretty patehtic writing… if that can get published…anything can…
More crappy chick-lit. Whats new?
On a higher note, thank God Maddox is finally coming out with his book, The Alphabet of Manliness. The antidote to bad chick-lit that oozes out of book stores like cheese from Pizza Da Hut. The day it was announced for pre-sales on Amazon, it hit #1, which is unheard of. Thankfully, due to the internet, publishers are finally giving the male demographic some notice.
It is amazing how much some of these writers get paid. There is a novel coming out in the UK soon called Londonstani by an Indian guy called Gautam Malkani for which he was reputedly paid £380,000, which in US dollar terms is way over half a million. Damn. Either I write a novel or rob a bank. Maybe I can rob a bank and then write a novel about it. How Black Belt Jones Robbed a Bank to Pay For His Arranged Marriage. Stick a mango on the cover and that’s it. Booker Prize here I come.
Re: “…The hostility against her here is weird. It’s just chick lit for teens. Why all the anger and dissing? She’s too stereotypically Indian. She’s not Indian enough. She’s this. She’s that. You guys are worse than TOI….”
While there may be a tendency to overanalyze, I think everyone has a perfect right to comment. I mean it IS entertainment, and everyone always has an opinion about entertainment. Plus, she was hyped in a lot of magazines and newspapers (brown included), so it’s understandable that people will have even more expectations.
here’s the first chapter, on the publisher’s site. i think it’s cute.
peace
It is only modestly better than the exceptionally ill-conceived “Born Confused”
And this is supposed a desi reviewer? Comparing Kali to Medusa?
Kali visits destruction – and not death but effects rebirth – when all the other deities have failed (or granted boons to malcontents unthinkingly like Shiva and Brahma always do). She is terrifying but also easy to please, as her devotee Kalidasa did, looking at her many heads Kalidasa mischievously asks, “wonder what happens when you catch a cold?”. Kali Puja comes at the end of the Dashera season – after Bijoya – and coincides with Dipavali. So much of Kali – so what if a girl is named Kali – not at all impossible. And I quite like the stress on achievement in Opal’s family as well as Kavya’s. Kalidas or Kali is common among men in Bengal as well as in parts of the South as in Kalidas Gupta; Kali Sengupta: KaaLiappa.
The cover model for the UK/India edition could be desi, but her look is more toward the white end of the spectrum.
Yeah! And especially nettling when one considers that the author herself is a beautiful shade of brown.
i did read the book, and if you go expecting it to be predictably easy going, teen chick-lit, its worth a read. took me about 3 hours to finish it & there are some genuinely funny moments… i think its pretty cool that a 17 year old wrote the book. the character’s name is sort of explained – opal = (semi?)precious stone. and if you’re talking about names, all the american ones in it are predictably stereotypical. Finally, the UK/India cover is sooo insipid. do they not want it to sell there?
Hmm, I saw it here in Boston at Barnes and Noble and it had a different cover (oops, see you’ve added it). I think the drawn figure is sort of breezy and fun. She’s quite pretty (the author, I mean) if you go by the glamor shot on the back cover. Anyway, it’s silly chick-lit, a bit young for me, but I can see enjoying the book. Sometimes you just want to read something light-weight and easy. I enjoyed all those Shop-o-holic books, so who am I to talk? Anyway, chick-lit is very comforting. It’s like having ice-cream if you are in a bad mood, it’s a little confection to feel light-hearted and happy for a moment or two. It doesn’t have to be all Proust all the time……
chickpea: after reading it, i had a personal vendetta against “born confused” during my bookstore days – i used to actively steer unknowing brown customers away from it and towards ghosh, roy, and the other more acceptable south asian authors that were available then.
“Kali is the hindu goddess of destruction and death-which parent would call their child that?”
I’ve known a few Kalis in India. They weren’t named after ‘Kaali’ the goddess of destruction but ‘Kali’ as in a budding flower.
Oh, and one more point regarding the ‘authenticity’ of it all – since when is chick-lit know for being realistic in any form? I’m sure there are lots of Mark Darcys looking for Bridgets out there. Happens all the time….
Ooops, one last comment! I read that excerpt (thanks siddharth m) and it is cute. The whole, “and he pays as much attention to me as a teapot,” is very, very cute.
I gotta admit, I loved Born Confused. Not in the literary genius kind of way, but remember when you were 16 and the only desi in HS, and all you had to read was Judy Blume, and Nancy Drew and as ok as they were they never really spoke to you? Born Confused was simple and it spoke to the me of 16, that was confused and trying to figure out life. I would never recommend this book to people our age, but when I bought it for my sister when she turned 17, it was the perfect present. We were able to bond over it, that ghosh and roy wouldn’t have created a bond over. I’m sure Opal Metha will have the same appeal.
I just read the excerpt (thanks siddhartha) and I thought it was adorable! It’s fluff, but it’s totally a book I would have loved in high school, a fun fantasy for nerdy girls. I sort of want to read the whole thing now.
I too liked “Born Confused.” It was one of the first young adult, realistic, contemporary novels, set in a specific South Asian culture. And because it was successful, it also made publishers realize there was a market for this sort of young adult book (as opposed to historical fiction or stories with teens set on the Subcontinent).
I am not sure how I feel about “young adult” literature. Its either good literature or its bad literature… If you’re old enough to read “Born Confused”, you’re old enough to read Rushdie or Hemingway
im a teenager, and im sure part of the demographic that the book is geared towards. frankly, i find most books geared towards my “age group” extremely condescending. they assume that we all have some kind of deep seated anger towards our heritage/parents. they refuse to acknowledge the vast majority of well-adjusted mature teenagers that think for themselves and know there is wisdom in adults/parents/heritage, but also has the sensibility to separate the good in it from the bad. also, all of do NOT do drugs, get drunk at crazy high school parties, and get knocked up. oh, if only there was a realistic depiction of my life which involves shitloads of hw, kind/friendly teacher and mean/nasty teachers, friends who are supportive yet mildly annoying, mom who loves u, but does not get your “american” sense-of-humor, and yes, parties, but sans alcohol
yup! And that Nancy Drew was every desi parent’s dream: always got straight A’s in school, and never kissed her boyfriend, Ned. Hell, I doubt they even held hands! I was sick of her being so perfect – not even her way-too-often-described-as-slightly-chunky-but-still-pretty friend, Beth, could make up for Nancy’s goody-goody ways. I think Nancy could learn something from Opal.
The non-desi-indie-girls are all nostalgic for their drew mysteries, though.
Thanks for the link, sid m. !
Taz: Of course I would have never recommended adult books like those to a teen looking for something to identify with. my problem with ‘born confused’ was essentially the over generalizations and stereotyping that i felt the author fell back on in order to connect with the reader which made her writing feel forced and made it obvious that the author was not in the mindset of a teen (excuse my vagueness, it’s been four years since i’ve read it). perhaps, i’m biased because i am obviously not the target demo for the book, but in my experience there are plenty of wonderful teen and children’s books that deal with issues honestly without falling back on cliches or and talk to teens on their level without trying too hard. i just wish there were more for south asian teens.
You’re all just jealous because I’m at Harvard, have loving parents who earn six figure salaries, have every blonde hunk and hot stud on campus fawning over me and my Prada-Gucci lifestyle, have an IQ of 250, am heart stoppingly beautiful with Bambi eyes and the cutest slimmest curvacious body…..so get over it twentysomething and thirtysomething ABCD’s…..whilst you were getting cellulite and bald….I got kissed (amongst other things 😉 got a life and got WILD!