Anuja Chauhan’s new novel may be a whodunnit, but its people are its pleasure, as usual
In ‘Club You To Death’, the popular writer with a perfect ear for conversation uses crime as a vehicle to portray the ‘beautiful people’ of Delhi society.
Early in
Those Pricey Thakur Girls, Anuja Chauhan’s thoroughly enjoyable novel set in 1980s Delhi, there’s a scene where the retired Justice LN Thakur and family pile into the khandaani Ambassador to see off their daughter Debjani aka Dabbu
for her first day as a newsreader at DeshDarpan (an obvious fictional stand-in for Doordarshan). Chauhan’s latest book, set in present-day Delhi, opens with a charming display of similar familial intimacy, squabbling but deeply affectionate: the retired Brigadier Balbir Dogra and family, four generations “stuffed into a rattling, eight-year-old Maruti Swift”, head off to play Tambola.