This book initiates the reader into thelives of Nagarkar’s evergreen child characters Ravan alias Ram Pawar and EddieCoutinho. After individually getting involved in the normal Bombay masala, thetwo boys land up at an acting school where they hope to culminate theirdreams”of becoming Bollywood stars!
Close to 300 pages from the time you startreading the book, does the book’s title finally end up making sense. This partof the book it beautifully handled as Nagarkar makes use of his flair of the Englishlanguage and takes us through the chapters where the duo hand-hold and build abond of trust. Their time in the industry is characterised by their meetingswith a collection of oddities that are presubscribed elements of the industry-adrunk father, a lonely child who needs to earn a living for herself and herhalf a dozen siblings, a brother who believes in thrashing the living daylightsout of the only earning member of the family, a wannabe poet, dancer and vampextraordinaire Helen.
The notable characters in the novel are theduo’s moms, Eddie’s sister Pieta, Eddie’s girlfriend Bellie and Aasman, thethird extra in the book. These women are strong influences and their characterslend to the book, in fact they may even be regarded as the building blocks ofthe storyline. But it is sad to see them disappear towards the end of the book.
Nagarkar rarely ever romanticises the city,but his style of dialogue delivery encapsulates details of the citybeautifully, right from the grim scenes of botched up abortions in the redlight district to paragraphs where Eddie has to do little to hide his venerealdisease from his family who visit him in the hospital”for the lack of ahospital bed, Eddie is placed in the ward for patients with pulmonary disease!Nagarkar’s insight and irreverence for the political establishment isdelightful.
Extras isn’t as biting as Ravan& Eddie, but the storyline is hilarious and the novel fun because of theeasy to read language and storytelling. Or maybe it’s the familiarity andNagargkar’s off side view of the world as we know it that makes it a compellingread.
