The House That BJ Built

Upon his deathbed Justice Laxmi Narayan Thakur, fondly known as Bauji or BJ to his family, extracts a promise from his eldest grandson, a brilliant young filmmaker visiting from Mumbai. Samar is to unite the bickering clan, get them to agree to sell the Judge’s 200 crore ancestral property on New Delhi’s posh Hailey Road, and share out the monies equally amongst all five heirs.

This proves to be easier said than done. Samar’s stepmother and her sisters all have decided - and differing - opinions on everything. Evil Ashok chacha is eyeing his neices’s inheritance. And there are tenants with powerful political con- nections squatting in the annexe. Besides, Samar isn’t at all sure about his new film, Thakur Sahib, a bio-pic based on BJ’s parent’s eventful marriage. And most exasperatingly, there is bloody Bonu Singh, orphaned daughter of Samar’s dead step-aunt, Binnie,whose first word on the planet was ‘balls’, who hates her four aunts with a vengeance and who tells him, quite categorically, that she will never consent to sell the house that is her only home...

When ‘chick lit’ is this clever, this funny, why label it as anything other than good writing! Sharply observed and pulse-quickeningly romantic, this is Anuja Chauhan writing at her warm and wicked