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One day my brother asked me that why don’t I read something more er.... Mature.

This was a disgusted reaction to my predilection with murder mysteries especially those authored by Agatha Christie.

According to him it was high time I moved up the ladder, to better literature. After all Agatha Christie is hardly the fit reading material for a thirty five year old mother of one…. At least I could be seen with a Harry Potter , that at least is the in thing.

Well I told my brother, who has constant apprehensions about what the people are saying. Although he is much younger than I (five years), I’m being constantly upbraided on my assorted conducts, refurbishing me on what is the done thing in any scenario.

Coupled with the fact that what the people are saying doesn’t
bother me much (me thinks people do not do all that much talking about me anyways. After all I am not exactly princess Di) Always been a believer of do your own thing.

So you could imaging how fraught with embarrassing moments my poor brother’s life would be always having to cove up for my unconventional mode of conduct.

Like when I adopted “reverse snobbism� i.e. flaunting the exact opposite of the usual status symbol. Like projecting how poor you are rather than how rich. That translated to dressing down instead of dressing up. I still remember his look of utter horror when I had ambled into a slap up party (where the women were simply dripping with diamonds and silk delicately sipping champagne from fluted glasses, exchanging pleasantries in soft anglicized accented tones.) in a cotton kurta very obviously from the Janpath scrunge, sans makeup, sans jewellary. And without batting an eyelid reply to a busybody’s hissed inquiry (“ what aren’t you wearing anything decent for gods sake) in a loud perfect non accented English “Cant afford it�.

Anyways you get the gist.

So I said I read Agatha Christie because I love reading Agatha Christie and that I have not been able in so many years (read the first when I was about 12-13 that makes it more than twenty years! high time!) have not been able to find something to better it. In her novels the characters are so commonplace people (butcher the baker the candlestick maker), and not spies engaged in international espionage (tell me how many secret agents have you met in real life).

The most endearing feature of an Agatha Christie whodunit is its dependency on the psychology of the crime and not on crawling about searching for clues (how childish). That’s what the author touts as the USP of her sleuths. How the people’s minds work.

The description is so vivid and such an enchanting picture of English life is portrayed (though I am sure actually it must be quiet boring really, after all nobody gets murdered in real life…) sometimes it is the aristocracy (all those dukes and earls) then again we are slumming in a village with equal aplomb (St Mary Mead?).

Makes a very engrossing and delightful read, as the newspaper review column is apt to say. And also how squeaky-clean! Its most offensive to read all those best seller paper backs so full of four letter words and grossness.

I mean the baser things in life might appeal to some strata of the society, but certainly not me. (I said this to my brother with a gimlet look not unlike Miss Marple, straight in the eye. He had the decency to squirm)

Hence forth there were no more enlightening sermons on the subject of suitable read for an elder sister. And we all lived happily ever after….

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