Book Review — Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh by Shrayana Bhattacharya

Name: Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh

Author: Shrayana Bhattacharya

Genre: Non-Fiction

Rating: 5/5

Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers

Page Count: 445

Recommended to: India’s lonely young women searching for intimacy and independence

My Review: This was the first non-fiction book which after turning the last page, I said, “What..? Did it finish?.” The author talks about how women in India find an escape with Shahrukh Khan’s movies and songs. She tells some real stories about girls/women from different backgrounds (names changed for privacy) who have faced rejection in their lives at different steps and can never be at the receiving end of both intimacy and independence. Most men here might disagree with this and might not like the hard facts presented by the author. They might shout at the top of their voices about how feminism is rising, and they treat everyone equally, but the numbers tell a different story altogether.

Being 34, financially independent, and getting rejected by the male clan for being opinionated, or for my eating habits or having a job, I could relate to the author very well.

The author talks about the moments when we turn to this romance king to escape from the brutal reality. We understand that all shown on the big screen is a myth. But we still give in to it. No one knows what kind of a husband would Raj make for Simran. But, still, for those few hours, we forget everything and just smile looking at him. Probably we get some emotional comfort to deal with real life.

Sharing a few quotes from the book that I liked -

1. Life can often be described as the distance we travel between the people we are and the people we want to be.
2. Our families prepare a woman to think of marriage as the most important thing she can do with herself.
3. Attention from a desirable man becomes the only currency that matters.
4. Women who wish to cultivate professional identities who don’t enjoy motherhood or being full-time caregivers generally suffer in India.
5. Give an Indian Man a good exam score, a good degree, and a good job, and he thinks he is God.
6. We need families and loved ones to stop imposing taxes on women’s desires for achievement outside the home.
7. Having fun and being comfortable in public is considered obscene.
8. For many of us, a life without marriage, children, and a good man is deemed spiritually incomplete.
9. “Good Women” are supposed to surrender their wages to their fathers, brothers, husbands and in-laws.