Some three-quarters way into Salaam, Paris our heroine Tanaya Shah states “It plays into every single silly stereotype,” reacting to a film plot she has just heard. Her agent agrees and says that’s why the film will get made. Kavita Daswani, seems to know a bit about stereotypes. Her first book, For Matrimonial Purposes, was full of them and things haven’t changed much with this, her third and most recent work. If anything, the storyline provides room to expand, adding stereotypes about Muslim women to the usual desi chick-lit mix of arranged marriages, overbearing parents and the promise of glitz, glamour and happiness as soon as you leave India.
Salaam, Paris is, like all chick-lit, a fairy-tale. A little Cinderella, a little…Sabrina, as in the 1954 movie starring Audrey Hepburn (or Julia Ormond in 1995). Instead of being in love with a rich playboy, though, Tanaya falls for Paris where, as Sabrina says in the movie, one learns to live, be in the world and of the world. Nineteen years old with nothing to look forward to but an arranged marriage and a life of cooking and cleaning, Tanaya dreams of escape from an unattractive, unhappy mother, a father who left before she was born (apparently because he didn’t want an ugly wife) and an over-protective grandfather. When a suitable boy enters the picture, meek Tanaya demands that she go to Paris to be ‘viewed’ rather than meeting him in Bombay as a good Muslim Indian girl would. Once in Paris Tanaya puts off calling her suitor and he, as Prince Charmings would, lets Tanaya off the hook by telling her grandfather that he rejected her. Encouraged by her cousin, who defied tradition by moving to Los Angeles for work, Tanaya stays in Paris against her family’s wishes. While working as a waitress, she’s discovered and becomes the first Muslim supermodel to hit the fashion world. All is not well in her glamorous world, though. It’s hard being a virgin, teetotaler supermodel, flitting between New York, the Caribbean and Paris, pretending to be hooked up with a rock star and being mauled by her handlers. It’s even worse when in between raking in fame and money, all you want to do is see your grandfather. Yes, Sabrina pined away for David Larrabee but our supermodel wants her Nana. All’s well that ends well, of course. A fairy godmother in the form of an aunt helps Tanaya reconcile with her dying (of course,) grandfather and Prince Charming does finally show up and they live happily ever after, in Paris (of course).
One shouldn’t expect much if anything from a beach read but one assumes that Daswani writes about the fashion world and places she knows because she is a bit familiar with them. If so, is it too much to hope for that some attention to detail and an element of credibility be present in her works? It seems so. As in her first book, there are jarring examples of an India of the 1980s while Daswani clearly sets the story in current times, mentioning John Stewart of the Daily Show and The Ellen Show. As before, there is a disconnect between what the life a real middle-class Indian girl, Muslim or not, whose grandfather is a retired Air India pilot in present-day Mumbai might be and that of Daswani’s Tanaya. But, even if the reader believes that Tanaya is forced to lead the cloistered life described, it makes even more unbelievable the pivotal event in her life, the night she is discovered in Paris. Here’s a girl who has never worn anything but a shalwaar-kameez, covered from head to toe, even in her job in Paris. Yet, when told she needs to wear a skimpy outfit for a catering event, she does so without hesitation. Indeed, Tanaya hems and haws more about buying orange juice from a corner store than she does about wearing fishnet stockings and a French maid’s costume. Even more unbelievable is that a few sentences later she’s being stripped by strangers down to ‘pasties’ and a thong by as she prepares to model leather pants. You have to give Daswani credit for the ultimate attention-getting device. The titillating scene takes place in the prologue, so the reader doesn’t learn why a nice Muslim girl is being stripped until many chapters later.
Daswani, it seems, has said she doesn’t know if there are any Muslim supermodels, but if Salaam, Paris is supposed to break ground in this area, it fails. Every imaginable cliché about Muslims and western perceptions has been thrown in, sadly, quite casually. So, you have references to Rushdie’s fatwa, four wives (Tanaya clarifies that she’s an Indian Muslim, not an Arab), she explains she’s not the “terrorist kind” when asked if she’s Muslim, her horror when pork is (accidentally) presented to her and the inevitable question about prayers. Luckily, Tanaya figured out which way Mecca is when she left India (wow—surely one can’t be that clueless, even a supermodel?). The clichés aren’t limited to Muslims. We have the obligatory gay rock star (the only type of guy a Muslim supermodel could hook up with for the benefit of tabloids), the chauvinistic Indian/Muslim male who promises the moon to Tanaya one moment but backs out the next because his family tells him to do so. Finally, like in her first book, there is the never-ending focus on looks. One is ugly and worthless, or beautiful, like Tanaya, and strong, successful, even if challenged when it comes to sense of direction.
But, then this is a beach-read. A fanstasy. No bearing to the real world or real people whatsoever. It’s best for the reader to keep this in mind or one might cringe. So, ignore the inaccuracies, the clichés, and…well, the plot and enjoy. The good news is that you’ll be finished with the book quickly—no danger of staying out too long in the sun.
Salaam, Paris
Kavita Daswani
Penguin, 2006
258 p.