Book Review: half pants full pants by Anand Suspi

Name of the Book: half pants full pants
Author: Anand Suspi
Star Rating: 5 stars 
Goodreads: Read the Blurb here 

School days, childhood, nostalgia. 

These are the three words that describe half pants fully pants by Anand Suspi. Every chapter is an anecdote giving us a glimpse of his childhood. He claims in his introduction to the book that every character is still living and breathing in this world so one must say that he has taken up quite a feat in maintaining the authenticity in his words.

If you have never visited Shimoga you can get glimpses of the southern flavor in its pages.


"We were soon out of Basavanagudi, crossed Nehru Stadium and kept trotting towards the school. I kept peering towards the other side of the road."
The passages are studded with Kannada, but readers will understand everything since the translations follow right after. Many memories of those days flooded back. Especially when the movie Jaws was released. How it affected our young minds when we saw the larger than life sharks in those movie theaters we called 'talkies'. We didn't have multiplexes in those days. Frankly, I don't miss the talkies so much where we women had to walk with a shield in front of us. Multiplexes are much cooler places to watch movies nowadays. Though I do miss those chips packets. The multiplexes couldn't do justice to that small packet of potato chips in butter papers.

Another nostalgic moment for me was the white guavas and the red ones. The fights we cousins would have to see who got which and I don't know why we thought the white ones were superior to the red. I suppose my first lesson on racism started with these guavas.

Anand Suspi's style of writing very humorous. An unlined twang of humor is present throughout the story.

"Mom was a good cook but every now and then (more often than this suggests), she marred her reputation by preparing awful vegetables. I liked potatoes, ladies finger, cucumber, peas, carrots, cauliflower, drumsticks and brinjal. So we clearly had a choice of eight vegetables for seven days of the week. I never understood mom’s compulsion to stray beyond these."

Omg! I can so relate to this. Being a Bengali, who are known to be hardcore non-vegetarians, I never understood why we had to cut those precious veggies. Did they not teach us in school to save plants?
The author has divided this book into two sections. His childhood, half pants, and his teenage years - full pants.  Those who have lived in the small towns of India would understand the importance of Lions Club in your area. Sort of like bosses of all activities. And then the stage comes when you create your own club. Especially readers of Enid Blyton have done it often. My grandfather even made me and my friends paint our servant quarters in the name of it becoming our 'find outer' club.

This book has many nostalgic moments and I thank the writer for writing such a book in such a simple and humorous way. It has taken me many steps back in my life. This book deserves every star it gets because of the sheer brilliance of visualization it will invoke in many readers.

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Comments

  1. This books sounds interesting and one that provides quite an insight into Bengali culture. This post was very helpful and I will definitely be giving it a read!

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