The Inscrutable Americans - Anurag Mathur

Dear Brother

“Anyway, I am learning many important things about Americans. Biggest thing is language. It is earlier making many problematics for me ,because like everyone I am thinking Americans are speaking English, but brother it is not English, it is American. I am facing so many embarassings on this reason
Once sitting with good friends, we are making good times. Saying jokes and laughing but when I am also saying good joke, they are saying “Get out of here”. I am going home and not sleeping that night, I am in so much fury. Now I am finding that it is also joke to say that. They are having many such sayings”

Your Brother,

Gopal

Well that’s Gopal(Guh-pal) for all of you…the protagonist of this book .A lad from a village called Jajau –which he calls the Paris of Madhya Pradesh ,comes to the U.S.A to do a diploma in chemical engineering. His life in India centers around his ancestral hair oil factory, as his father describes it-‘they have more hair oil in their veins than blood’. His English is comical to read at first but you cant take his absurd language after a point in the book. His first brush with America through a billboard having a scantly clad model endorsing a product is funny. And from there starts his journey to explore this new country yet strictly believing in his Motherlands strengths when questioned.

This book describes the image an average Indian holds about America through the character of Gopal. His image of America is through his little known knowledge of Archie n Jughead, Deep Throat and Saturday Night Fever, his craving to meet Brooke Sheilds and plans to lure her by sending a lifelong supply of his Jajau made hair oil leaves the reader laughing but it just stops there. His craving to live like an ordinary American guy with a girl to fulfill his carnal pleasures, his brush with racism there, his encounter with different American men and women grows this character from a young innocent lad into a man. He understands of the racial divide there, where the Blacks accept everyone of the darker color as their ally while whites ignoring other colored people. The fight of the natives for jobs which are being lost to foreigners-makes him realize that maybe its not really the land of opportunities afterall.

If you are looking for some really good literature-this book is a complete no no. I would pass it off as average read maybe something u want to pick up on a random day and finish off in a few hours. Honestly this book doesn’t show the readers anything new, it’s the same plot of Indians going to America to try their ways by bending their own.
Such a plot has been quite common for the past few years. Some things described by the author are good. I characters used especially Gopal and Randy to distinctly show the difference in Indian and American ways was done well. Be it in the broken lingo of Gopal or the carefree, typical Yank ways of Randy, these two characters give some hope to the repetitious plot of the book .The other thing I liked about this book apart form its title is how Gopal symbolizes America with 3 things

*Baskets in front of every American Home
*Vegetarian Cats-or Pussies
*And an old woman who has a weird idea about India.

So let me end this in Anurag Mathur’s style with what Gopal has to do with America

“Seeing the world and things like that, making me broader before settling down to do business”