A Resident Indian’s Perspective on Arushi Avachat’s Arya Khanna’s Bollywood Moment

 For the Desi and Pardesi folks, presenting a book structured like a Bollywood movie.

Arya Khanna’s Bollywood Moment is the debut novel of American – Indian author Arushi Avachat. She wrote this when she was just a teen. It showcases her love for Bollywood movies quite clearly. A contemporary fiction for young adults.

Arya Khanna has a lot on her plate, her elder sister(who is home after a long time) is getting married, her two best friends are going through a bad breakup, and she has a rivalry going on with the student council head (read: an attractive and frustrating dude) and her mother is getting sadder. This book is all about her dealing with everything. 

The premise seemed interesting to me family dynamics, friendship dynamics, and romance with the magic of Bollywood, count me in. The book was good if not very memorable but still good. It did not quite meet my expectations maybe I set them too high probably because I am an Indian who lives in India and got excited about the premise.

First of all, writing a book like a Bollywood movie is not an easy task, they are full of colors, and their songs and music are really important elements of the movie. These things can not be shown on paper but books have a special advantage, you can go into details and really touch peoples’ emotions, we can get into the characters’ heads. Additionally, Bollywood movies are known for their emotional scenes as well. Somehow the book did not make me feel these things or tug at my heartstrings one could say.

This book is about an Indian wedding, Indian Weddings are so many fun rituals with friends and family, fun with cousins, leg-pulling, lots of dancing, and beautiful clothes. Now, this has been my experience in India, so quite possibly the Indian weddings in America are like it was shown in the book. Indian Families can be very- very big. the bride’s and the groom’s houses always have people, there is an entire function dedicated to dancing where the bride’s side and groom’s side compete with each other, many relatives (aunts and uncles, grandparents, parents, siblings &cousins) dance showing their love and many more things (dance rehearsals go on for about a month). Then there is a ritual of the bride’s siblings and cousins stealing the Groom’s shoes, and asking for things in return for them, and these are just some of the fun parts, So, again my expectations weren’t quite met, as the book did not particularly go into the fun rituals and the fun with cousins and family, though there were certainly moments like that, even though not up to my expected amount. The dresses in the book did not disappoint though, they were amazing.

There were two ways the book could have gone either the above one or it could have dived deep into the family dynamics. I did not like the constant blaming of the sister and I thought the mother’s situation could have been explored better I felt like only the tip of the iceberg was touched, there were certainly some mental health troubles, and since seeking mental help is still something akin to a taboo in Indian families especially in the older generations, the topic being explored properly would have made for some heavy but welcome stuff. 

Then the breakup situation, I expected something like Ross and Rachel’s first breakup in Friends, like I expected her constantly trying to juggle between her two best friends and all the awkwardness such a situation calls for, but here one of the friends was literally not there for most of the book, that conflict seemed rather unnecessary. The starting point was quite obviously bad decision-making by our MC but at the same time, her friend’s excuse felt a bit weak you can’t constantly push people away and then be upset when they stop trying to reach out.

The romance was so very cute, but the given summary is a bit misleading. So the reader expects proper academic rivals to lovers story. Throughout the book, the trope is not very consistent and at times even felt one-sided. I also felt that the love declaration came too fast.

Arya was interesting, she made many mistakes and apologized a lot many times. I understood her thoughts and her dilemma with her family and friends, trying to juggle between her mother and sister, some would say that she was interfering between them and she shouldn’t have but it was understandable, you just want everything to be fine and the family to get along, and well it isn’t something out of the ordinary in Indian families, we are somewhat interfering, somewhat overprotective but we love each other to bits. There was good character growth. Her love interest Dean was really cute and he knew how to handle her so well.

I would give it a tweens and up age rating.

I hope whoever reads this review now knows what to expect. It is a book with family drama, a flawed main character, a sweet romance, and the ups and downs of life. 3.5 stars for this one. The author’s voice is fresh & clear and I’ll be on the lookout for whatever she writes next.

That’s all.

Yours 

A Fellow Bookworm