Book review: The Amazing Racist by Chhimi Tenduf-La

This is more a brief take than review.

The Amazing Racist by Chhimi Tenduf-La

Eddie Trusted, your average English teacher (ha! that gives you pause, right?) wants to marry the girl of his dreams, the voluptuous, flirtatious, manipulative Menaka. Eddie happens to be in Colombo and Menaka just happens to be the daughter of tough, eats-Englishmen-for-breakfast Thilak Rupasinghe, the man who can and does make many a grown man cry in Sri Lanka. Eddie and Thilak set eyes on each other and it`s immediate shock and awe on one side, unvarnished disgust and loathing on the other. In actual fact, they are  perfect foils for each other.

Starting off with the meet-cute, Chhimi Tenduf-La`s story quite quickly arrives at its core: how Eddie gets closer to Thilak in the most tentative way, and gradually, starts to develop a fondness for the old curmudgeon,  even as events in Lanka, as well as in both the men`s lives, start to unravel.

Like the Malayalam films of old, which begin with rib-cracking humour soon giving way to  very serious stuff, this book has the reader laughing aloud several times and then slowly sobering up as the emotional core of the tale reveals itself. All the other characters fade into the background as Thilak and Eddie forge a bittersweet bond.

Funny, tender, sweet, realistic, cynical at times, The Amazing Racist is a dashed good read.