Rest of the story is about how youngistan fights oldistan to get the approval for marriage. The meeting of two families on the convocation day at the college sets the drama into motion. Inter-caste marriages are still a taboo in India and let alone an inter-state marriage of a Punjabi and a Tam Brahmin. The twist in the tale is, they want to marry with their parents’ consent rather than choosing the easy way of eloping. It takes sometime before they realize that they may not be able to convince their families to support their marriage. Life is great for them until their families meet each other. Krish and Ananya meet in the canteen for the first time and eventually over a few days of combined study, fall in love. The initial pages of the book are set up in IIM-Ahmedabad.

A Punjabi-Tamilian love story, set in times when Hrithik Roshan sprang to fame and parents controlled the worlds of their 20 something children, shows how their marriage was an unthinkable phenomenon and it was finally made possible. The IIT-IIM graduate Chetan Bhagat (biggest selling English language novelist in Indian history: NEW YORK TIMES), treats us with a semi autobiographical account of how Krish marries Ananya. In fact the book I am here to review goes by the name “2 States – The Story Of My Marriage”. You may hate marriage or you may love it but you can’t ignore it. Questions about Salman Khan’s marriage pop up in every interview he gives. Feminists shout from rooftops of how marriage serves as a medium of oppression of women yet almost every girl dreams of getting her ‘sapnon ka rajkumar’. Even after Dr Chaddha (Vicky donor) gave his all in explaining how marriage was a ‘wastage of Sperm’, we find news of mass marriages with 70 odd couples marrying simultaneously. The super succesfull Jubilees of Rajshri Productions were no more than dramatized marriage videos. That old “maine apne dost ko zubaan di thi ki main dosti ko rishte mein badlunga” situation has been immortalized in various Bollywood dramas, the most popular one being DILWALE DULHANIA LE JAENGE(even the title signifies marriage). If you are a girl born in India, there is a very high possibility that that even before you were born your parents had decided who you would marry. But apart from religion, there is another obsession in India which cannot be said to be completely independent of their beloved ‘opium’. This surely stands true for the Indian people. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. “Religion is the opium of the people” said Karl Marx.

Two states book by chetan bhagat