You either need a glass of wine or a cup of strong black coffee to handle all the drama that The Bitter Pill Social Club has to offer. I am going to seek pardon for my language right now itself as a warning because if the following is offensive to you, then you should stay miles away from the book.

First page into the opening act, and I am sold. It grabs the essence of the current society (especially that of south Delhi and south Bombay or SoBo like many say) right by its balls. There's no holding back here, no tongue-in-the-cheek shenanigans, no bars maintained, no chewing of words. It's an absolute in-your-face-bitch kinda book.

The story begins off with Sana aka Sunaina, finding out that the guy she has been dating for a while and hoped was in love with, actually has the hots for dudes, thereby leaving her ring finger's desire of having a solitaire around its girth, as a broken dream.

And that's when all the drama begins.

But not the teary oh-my-god-how-can-you-do-this-to-me-I-am-so-in-love-with-you kinda weepy overrated melo. This is the eyeball rolling, phone flicking (there's a lot of it), verbal abusing, over drinking sorta drama.

So Sunaina Kochar is the point from which we slowly gain an insight into the "freakshow that is her family" AND friends as well. The moot point is that whoever is related to the Kochar family, by blood or by friendship has a mess on a silver plate for life. An absolute mess.
So this book is not only about Sunaina, it talks equally enough about all the other characters as well, however you could say that Sunaina is the founder of The Bitter Pill Social Club.

Like I said that this broth of a tale has not only the story of one life but several, and for the sake of binding it all and uplifting the flavours, there is a hell lot of spices added as well.
For example, there is a scene which I think is like the garamasala of drama, where we see a girl, her ex-lover and the guy-who-wants-to-be-her-lover have a small blowout.
To add some sweetness we have romance, quite a lot of it in fact.
Then to balance it out, you got to add some salt (I believe they are from the tears that have rolled from the cheeks to the pot of life) by having some really caustic moments like when Leela turned out to be an opportunist in disguise. There was a time when I thought there is no one who is nice or has some semblance of normalcy, 'cause even Leela, the girl who appeared to be smart and caring turned out to be a bitch. Kinda seemed like the moral of life is to tell people that every one is a scheming retard.
Next to give it a kick there is some chilly in the form of jealousy and cold shoulders.
At this point when you taste the broth you feel there is something missing, something is needed to add more depth to that flavour profile, or else it won't be like ma-ke-haat-ka-khana, you add some bay leaves; true cooks know that it adds great richness to soups and stews, and that is when you are taken deeper into the relationships. Because while this book focuses a lot on the cheap glitter of lives that we take as the shine of gold, Rohan Dahiya also shows what life actually means for us now, how we are living without living. It seems like we have a new definition of 'living' these days. Only if you post pictures on Instagram, worthy of having #couplegoals or #wanderlust or #foodporn in the comments section, people think you are living. And if you don't live according to these norms then Lord... you are a dinosaur. Life doesn't always have to be flashy and false, and that is proved by Samaira who was once a mean chick but has now turned into a down-to-earth social worker (yeah you knew something was like this was coming).

Now that the flavour is alright, you think of adding some Vodka, because what is adulthood if not having the legal authority to pour some booze over anything we want? And that's when we get scenes like where a father hits his middle-aged son and his son wants this to stop only because he barely resembles Ben Affleck which helps him get laid. I was rooting for the dad actually, the son I think is a jerk.
And to finish it off, we add some garnishing to give it a good presentation before the hapless consumer of this soup gets blown away by the complex flavours, in the form of a big fat Indian wedding. Pompous weddings are essential for the existance of Indians. I am a firm believer of that and I also think they are the ultimate stage where the real drama unfolds. Oh no. It should be EXPLODES.

Talking of food and ma-ke-haat-ka-khana reminded me that there is a place where Rohan Dahiya describes comfort food. I intend to write a letter to Oxford telling them that this is what they need as the perfect definition of comfort food. Every other attempt to explain it has fallen flat.

Love, love, love and love. What is this world without love? Absolutely nothing. Zilch. But you feel that love is deceitful and true love is a farce. Well there happens to be a formula to find the love of your life, clearly defined in the pages of this book and that is:
1 bottle of Wine + Unlimited number of Cigarettes + 1 shared joint + Rain + Some star gazing = A night spent warming the bed and possibly worming into each other's hearts as well.
Also, here the belief is that a joint tries to join people, but it lasts only while the smoky head from smoking up lasts.
But worry not, apparently it is possible to find warm fuzzy love in this world of shine and shimmer. And those of you who think that Tinder is a waste of time 'cause you only find people you never want to see again, it's time for you to go back to that app with gusto. Apparently you can find true love there in the middle of all the other one-night stands, just like Surya found Dhiraj (but definitely after finding a whatshisname who was a married man with kids).

Another important facet of this novel is the generation gap we suffer from. You know how the major difference between GenY and GenX is that one thinks that it has all sorted while the other has it all scattered? Well this club shows that whoever is its member, be it young or old, holds an array of badges for commemorating the number of times they have screwed themselves up thoroughly at some point of time or the other. So no one has their lives sorted. Be it in your twenties or in your freshly fuckable (you'll know why) forties/fifties, everybody's life is actually a soup. So the Kochar family is a chaos in its truest sense and here it appears that the elders have lost their shit more than their kids have.

An interesting fact that I came across, is that this book originated from a playlist. Every chapter name is actually a song and they add well to dramatization really. My favourite is 'Lonely for you only'.

Amidst all the praises I have for the book, I felt that there were some lose joints in the jumps of the plot, and they are most likely to make you go like what the hell happened? So I feel there is a bit of a continuity problem in some areas.

Full of stingy comments like 'a fresh out-of-bed selfie later' and 'when her no-makeup makeup was scrubbed off", and some subtleties thrown in like "with no roughage in their nasal passage the face numbing coke hit them immediately", make this book a super fun read. There are also these really interesting bits of eye-opening and life saving information like "People who wore Kolhapuri chappals rarely had anything interesting to say" and that those who listened to Nucleya were smarter than the rest.

What I derived from this drama galore is that, the more we try to be liked by all, the more we end up pretending, the more we pretend, the more the falsitudes grow and misunderstandings happen leading us to be lonely creatures in this world full of people and end up giving absolutely zero fucks to even those who matter. On the other hand, by remaining true to oneself, you may not be liked by all, but at least you will have some one with you because they value who you are. Its as if we are growing thinking that the world is nothing but an empty shell and there is no one to give us the affection every being desires. Only at the end when we can't hold up the pretense of loving to live alone anymore, do we crumble. The other thing that I strongly felt was the relation between a mother and a child. Yes we do have differences in ideologies, but sometimes that difference is enjoyable. We wouldn't want our parents to be like us. Hell no. They are our pillars of support. Aren't we the ones who run to them for direction when hope runs bleak? Aren't there moments where we just want the comfort of a mother's lap or the ease of striking up useless banter with our dads? So can you imagine how horrific it would be if our parents turned into confused souls like us? We like them to be a little old fashioned.

But relax, this book isn't a preachy one AT ALL. It is anything but that. I think it's an absolute riot of laughs and tears.

This would make an amazing film I think. Got all the bollywood-y masala in it. Like a Madhur Bhandarkar or a KJo film definitely!
And since I am the Director of my own film in my mind, I would cast Meryl Streep as Tina and Karishma Sharma seems like a perfect fit for the shoes of Sunaina!

Note : I received this book from Bloomsbury in exchange of an honest review.

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