Book review: Ultimate Grandmother Hacks by Kavita Devgan

Reviewed by Shikhandin

Title: Ultimate Grandmother Hacks – 50 kickass traditional habits for a fitter you
Author: Kavita Devgan
Publisher: Rupa Publications
Pages: Paperback, 218
Price: INR 295/-

The title of the book will grab any millennial’s attention. The book cover is elegant and clutter free, in spite of packing in a title that runs into a sentence, the author’s name, the visual element and an endorsement by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw.  The back cover is strengthened by two more celebrity endorsements, apart from a pithy blurb set to hook the reader. I am certain this book is doing well. Especially since it embraces a subject that will always remain ever green – fitness through food.

“Ultimate Grandmother Hacks” is written in a conversational style, like most books of its ilk, dishing out tips and recipes and so forth, in what the author and her editors assumedly believe is accessible, readable. I guess it really is a matter of individual taste. Accessibility can become frivolous, and at times talk down to the readers. It was probably this aspect that made it a little difficult for me to take this ride with Devgan. Every now and then, I felt like a tourist being led by a guide who has nothing new to say, but gushes about it, nevertheless.

“Now all mothers are amazing. But mine is not just amazing, she is somehow supremely attuned to all things healthy too. Case in point: one of her recent concoctions is grated beetroot and carrot atta (dough), seasoned with salt and ajwain (carom seeds). Imagine beetroot parantha (bread). Unusual, agreed. But what a fantastic, even if somewhat twisted way to sneak in healthy eating.” This piece, in the prologue, breezily proclaiming a standard homemaker’s tactic to make regular paratha to be her mother’s invention, was off putting; and then, going on to explain Indian words to an Indian audience, pretty much throughout the book. If one must make allowances for foreign readers, then, please just add it to the glossary at the end. Readers are not fools, nor are they all that ignorant. Though going by the tone of the whole book, Kavita Devgan obviously believes so. And, then it hit me.

Who is this book really for?