Time for Some 'Gulp Fiction' Jayant Kripalani Style

Jayant Kripalani, the most memorable face of Vicks cough lozenges, now coughs up his second book.

- Kakoli Poddar

Titled, Cantilevered Tales, this book sparkles with doses of Jayant Kripalani’s inimitable wit and humour, at times irreverent and at others with dashes of slapstick.

Jayant says, “There is nothing literary about this fiction. It isn’t pulp fiction either. It is a piece of ‘gulp fiction’ to coin a phrase—and it is to be taken with a pinch of salt, though not to be regurgitated in any way or form.”

The major part of the book is about the effort of a motley group of people in saving a waterbody, the Santragachhi Jheel, from an unscrupulous builder. Their combined efforts save the jheel and the greedy and barjaat (wicked) builder Barjatiya gets his comeuppance. The tempo gradually gathers momentum, almost like a thriller. Most of the characters and situations have been drawn from real life.

Among the thinly disguised characters is one advertising bigwig Alec Padmanabhan, christened Oleek Babu by the Chief Minister, who speaks in a grating nasal voice and sports an unnaturally dyed goatee and hair. He is described as a ‘legend in his lifetime’ by admirers and called a ‘legend in his own mind’ by the jealous ones.

Jayant says his book is not a ‘builder versus helpless citizen’ epic. “My book is about a group of inept people, who you want to reach out to and protect, but discover they are more than capable of taking care of themselves.”