Book review: Ravan and Eddie by Kiran Mangrurkar

Recently picked up this book – one for its odd title and secondly as it was highly recommended as an accurate view of the Chawl system – where half of Mumbai lives.
It is the story of two children in a chawl in Mumbai whose lives move along parallel paths on two floors in the chawl. As a child Ravan – with an interesting episode behind how his names changes from Ram to Ravan – jumps of the first floor of his chawl into Eddie (yet to be born) father who is eyeing Ravans mother Parvathi. In an attempt to catch and save Ravan he falls down, hits his head and dies on the spot. Eddies mother Voilet, blames Ravan for “murder” of her husband and inadverently sows the same seed in her Son Eddies mind too – who by the way is born on the next day of his fathers death as Voilet gets here labor pains as the hearse van is moving out and infact is taken to the hospital in the same Hearse van with the dead body ;-). It is a hilarious episode with laugh a second humor – a humor built less in “words’ and more in the characters, they way they think and way they interpret life and events in general. Be it Ravans mother Parvathibai who puts up with her Good-for-nothing husband Shankar rao even when he gets a whore home, or be it Father Angello – the priest who is feb up with Eddies antiques and constant tendency to get in trouble – you can actually visualise the characters through the words – you actualy pause to think “why does he think this way”. But the book focuses entirely on Ravan and Eddie with the supporting cast only making a brief appearance. The book also dabbles into small diversions at the authors whims and fancies into – the rise and fall of Shammi Kapoor or the brief history of Portugese in India – which is extremely entertaining and most down to earth view of these things. Though if you are in a hurry its easy to skip these sections and continue with the section – in fact the author advices u to do so J
True to its word the book does shed light on the life in the chawls of Mumbai and though portrayed in several movies e.g. Katha, is one of the best rendering of the “Chawl mentality’ I have read/seen till date.
The episode where Ravan starts thinking he has also murdered Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and his confusion due to inability to remember any of the two murders he has been accussed off (atleast that’s what he thinks) is side-splitting.
The grouse about the book –
At times it tends to get explicitly sexual – blame it on Marathi authors and of course it ends suddenly. It leads to no conclusion and should be read only as a rendering of the chawl. In fact it ends so abruptly that you actually turn to see if you have a pirated version with pages missing or something (though I bought an official one online).

Verdict –
For - worth a read for the humor, the characters and for an insider view on the life spent by 50% of Mumbai population in Chawls,
Against - Don’t expect any great philosophy or an ending to the story. Enjoy the ride while it lasts and then just get off!!!

Rating on Sam-meter – 3 on 5