Passage of rite
7 July 2012 5:30 AM IST
The success of Karan Puri’s blog that he started to write in college, soon lead him to write his ‘own little book’. It just so happens, it is called Shit Happens.
‘[Shit] is the most common word, but for the title of this novel, we wanted a trendy one, which youngsters could connect with. Shit is used to express the emotional intensity of the protagonist. It’s about the fact that shit happens in life. People come and go, people judge you, you judge them, you make mistakes, you learn or don’t learn. If you’re me, you make those mistakes again and again. And you realise over and over again in your life that shit happens,’ says Puri.
In Shit Happens, the protagonist Anurag Sinha’s mundane school life goes from bad to worse when Alisha Mahapatra, the prettiest and dumbest girl in his class, decides to use his brains to complete her trigonometry homework. He has always been the teacher’s pet, who backbenchers loved to hate. As a result of his geek status he has never had the opportunity to socially mingle with the pretty people - forget all about talking to the most popular girl in class.
When Alisha surprises him in the lunch break by jumping in front of him, as a reflex action he pushes her down and then throws his lunch box and its contents on her. The incident is witnessed by everyone and her boyfriend Amit, the captain of the school cricket team, makes sure that Anurag gets the whacking of a lifetime ably assisted by other members of the school cricket team.
Henceforth he was marked for bullying and ridicule. That is when he decided that he was going to prove to himself that he was way better than his antagonists by ensuring that he got admission to study in the US of A. He would gain what none of them could ever aspire to - a foreign degree. It is then that his earnest efforts to fulfil this boyhood dream begin. Getting through to the University of Rochester was one of his finest achievements, but the journey called life had just begun.
The boy from Delhi whose whole family came to see him off at the airport was hit by culture shock in a number of unexpected places. A few of them were in the toilet in Frankfurt airport, where he had to deal with toilet paper for the first time. A taxi ride in New York, where the driver instead of hustling him for extra money, gave him a free ride. An Indian food restaurant called Taj Mahal, which served beef kebabs. Not to mention the fact that he actually fell in love with an American girl.
Of course, it can be a sticky affair when the girl that you love happens to be the girlfriend of your roommate. A roommate who happens to think of you as a brother and looks after you and your interests. And it’s a real pity that he can’t remember losing his virginity, even though it is an event that he has been anticipating all his life! With time and varied experiences the boy becomes a man who is not longer insecure about his self worth, but confident in his own skin. The transition that he goes through is what this story is all about.
‘[Shit] is the most common word, but for the title of this novel, we wanted a trendy one, which youngsters could connect with. Shit is used to express the emotional intensity of the protagonist. It’s about the fact that shit happens in life. People come and go, people judge you, you judge them, you make mistakes, you learn or don’t learn. If you’re me, you make those mistakes again and again. And you realise over and over again in your life that shit happens,’ says Puri.
In Shit Happens, the protagonist Anurag Sinha’s mundane school life goes from bad to worse when Alisha Mahapatra, the prettiest and dumbest girl in his class, decides to use his brains to complete her trigonometry homework. He has always been the teacher’s pet, who backbenchers loved to hate. As a result of his geek status he has never had the opportunity to socially mingle with the pretty people - forget all about talking to the most popular girl in class.
When Alisha surprises him in the lunch break by jumping in front of him, as a reflex action he pushes her down and then throws his lunch box and its contents on her. The incident is witnessed by everyone and her boyfriend Amit, the captain of the school cricket team, makes sure that Anurag gets the whacking of a lifetime ably assisted by other members of the school cricket team.
Henceforth he was marked for bullying and ridicule. That is when he decided that he was going to prove to himself that he was way better than his antagonists by ensuring that he got admission to study in the US of A. He would gain what none of them could ever aspire to - a foreign degree. It is then that his earnest efforts to fulfil this boyhood dream begin. Getting through to the University of Rochester was one of his finest achievements, but the journey called life had just begun.
The boy from Delhi whose whole family came to see him off at the airport was hit by culture shock in a number of unexpected places. A few of them were in the toilet in Frankfurt airport, where he had to deal with toilet paper for the first time. A taxi ride in New York, where the driver instead of hustling him for extra money, gave him a free ride. An Indian food restaurant called Taj Mahal, which served beef kebabs. Not to mention the fact that he actually fell in love with an American girl.
Of course, it can be a sticky affair when the girl that you love happens to be the girlfriend of your roommate. A roommate who happens to think of you as a brother and looks after you and your interests. And it’s a real pity that he can’t remember losing his virginity, even though it is an event that he has been anticipating all his life! With time and varied experiences the boy becomes a man who is not longer insecure about his self worth, but confident in his own skin. The transition that he goes through is what this story is all about.
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