Munnabhai? No

For a book that puts so much freight on Bombay's rains and lasses, it doesn't lyrically describe either

Updated on: 5 February 2022 8:45 pm

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Munnabhai? No

There are the staple bits about ragging (which was infinitely more imaginative in the mofussil medical college I attended), lecture hall merriment and heartbreak. The strike by MARD (Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors) features centrally and leads (by accidents of fate) to a journey into the Northeast.

Medical undergrads and postgrads inhabit a world of great perversities and action. Its minutiae should make for great literature. If only someone would write their own half decent, roman a clef (with some back-handed wryness). I keep thinking of what Upamanyu Chatterjee would have done with latinate polysyllabic medical jargon and the anatomy dissection hall.

One last thing: for a book that puts so much freight on Bombay’s rains and lasses, it doesn’t lyrically describe either.