While Meera Shashidhara’s newly released book ‘Hollywood/Bollywood – An eternal love affair’ is packed with an absorbing emotional quotient, the reader can be left surprised with episodes that turn out to be an unexpected thriller.

By Ranjani Govind

As it happens often during a book review, this time too Meera Shashidhara’s debut fiction ‘Hollywood/Bollywood – An eternal love affair’ had me wonder, ‘who am I to rate such an engaging piece of work?’ Here I am, a journalist with culture as one of my beats, reading into the mind of the narrator who not just skillfully interlaces a steamy affair into her storyline, but the romantic novel has variety information overflowing right through the ‘love affair and beyond.’ The book strides on Indian and western culture, cuisine, fashion, music and even the play of colours! “The story unravels the breathtaking beauty of California, and offers a glimpse of the rich art, architecture, textile and local gastronomy of ancient India,” says the author in her foreword.

Although fiction is said to be a subjective pick, when the narrative hardly comes across as an ‘introductory fiction work’ of the author, it is bound to strike a chord in many and invite a blend of reactions. The book looks beyond an evocative account of a straight-forward love affair even as it journeys through a few decades swinging back and forth with graphic flashbacks that suit the title of the book ‘Hollywood/Bollywood.’ Packed with an absorbing emotional quotient, the reader can be left surprised with episodes that turn out to be an unexpected thriller.

Consider the start point by Meera: Anita arrives at Stanford for a PHD in Molecular Oncology, while Niraj is a young Venture Capitalist in Silicon Valley, California, where brilliant minds make the world dance to their tunes. Both are from Bangalore (the other Silicon Valley) India. They meet at a conference in Washington D.C, where Anita is presenting a paper. Niraj cannot take his eyes off her. She dazzles, intrigues and stuns him, all at once! Before long, the young duo Anita and Niraj, adamant and irrevocably in love, decide to get married despite many hindrances.… and face the angst of the same, traversing two continents.

Meera Shashidhara flags off with a pleasant drive, slips in a roller-coaster of emotions and finally sets her wheel on a different gear! Who would ever foresee the ensuing plot getting into a suspenseful mode? Although the progression of events seems filmy, one can effortlessly connect with the flow to see relationships, over time, turning turbulent and sour. 

But how much has the story to do with Hollywood/Bollywood? “Nothing of a direct connect per se, except that I love watching life’s dramas through masala films – this book is another drama with some spicy Diaspora masala, signature to my thinking!” says Meera adding that the mysterious twist of events post the interval time in the book is the stirring factor with a crime hopping on from an unlikely quarter. “Yes, it has a very filmy Hollywood-Bollywood kind of finish,” the author seems at ease to have her readers get edgy.

As things move on, the sheath of understanding gets weaker for the protagonists Anita and Niraj, with the rhythm slipping away in their relationship, however transparent it may seem to be, explains Meera, who wanted to offer a wholesome read. It is no wonder that her luxuriant, prolific train of picturisation has a multitude of subject matter for comprehension, making it an indulgent read.   

The book takes off from the vivid sketch of the luxury resort Aguada nestled on the Sinquerim beach of Goa, a tropical heaven where coconut trees dance to the tantalizing breeze of the sea. Anita’s sister-in-law Kiran on her wedding is seen wearing fuchsia pink and peach bridal lehenga, “with renaissance style hand-embroidery, embellished with Swarovski. The finest silk threads and deft needle work by expert kaarigars had brought in Kiran’s favorite motifs – exotic birds and butterflies to adorn her lehenga. Stunning Mughal style jewellery with uncut diamonds, Burmese rubies, Columbian emeralds and Basra pearls complemented her outfit.”

Meera’s elucidation of the “typical modern Punjabi wedding” and the geographical proximity of Sindhi and Punjabi cultures intertwined for their gastronomic delights she mentions, and her additional facts for people’s knowledge on the drug consumption in Punjab being three times the Indian national average, would be an eye-opener to many, especially Indians living abroad. “Punjab shares its borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan making it an easily accessible market along the transit route. Wealth from agriculture was there but most of the youth were unemployed due to lack of industrialization and threats of militancy,” she observes.

The story moves on to Niraj, over the years, deciding to quit being a VC to become an entrepreneur, starting his own Mobile Payments Company in Bangalore, while Anita decides to have a collaborative research center. Years later, while Niraj’s company faces imminent bankruptcy, so does their relationship.

Again what scores for Meera is her ability to underscore areas of basic understanding to readers. Anita’s research guide Prof. Levite who is exploring strategic ways to treat breast cancer “had identified a molecule which was a ‘brake’ on the immune system…and had discovered the true therapeutic potential of his discovery – remove the brake to drive immune cells to directly attack tumors. An antibody was required to do this task.”

The book ‘Hollywood/Bollywood – An eternal love affair’ published by Prism Books in Bangalore, India has an air of informality, the language and idiom often reminding one of the local tongue in India. And that’s where the formality of a novel disappears, and the intimacy created makes her dedicate the book to “mothers all over the world who pledge their lives to having a balancing act” and her father Shashidhara Vishwamitra who is the “real writer in Kannada in the family.”

Meera was born and raised in Bangalore and in 1991 she immigrated to the US to pursue her MBA, post which she is working and living in the Bay Area, California. Her earlier work ‘Living To Be a Hundred’ is a collection of memoirs of 19 Centenarians who were vibrant hitting a Century! It has been republished on Amazon as ‘Immigrant Centenarians’ in 2020. “My father, an award winning Kannada author, has remained my inspiration,” says Naturalist Meera, also passionate about nature conservation and wildlife protection ([email protected]).

It is to Prism Books’ credit that the publisher didn’t retreat from bringing out the best for us even during the troubled times of the pandemic in the last 18 months. Some of Prism’s recent best sellers include ‘Tales of Malabar’ by Sreekumari Ramachandran that unfolds stories on captivating legends of ancient Malabar; ‘Live healthier, Live Longer’ – a Harvard Medical School’s special health report edited by Prof. BM Hegde and JS Pant; and ‘The Secret’ – a novel by Leela Chacko Peter that takes one through the Syrian Catholic traditions of Kerala where Joseph journeys to where his mother grew up “to discover his amma’s undisclosed secret.”

‘Hollywood/Bollywood – An eternal love affair’ 

by Meera Shashidhara

Prism Books

Rs.295

available at major book stores and on Amazon