Non-Fiction
HOW TO BE HUMAN: LIFE LESSONS FROM BUDDY HIRANI
Manjeet Hirani
Publisher: Ebury Press
Published: January 2018
Pages: 156, Hardcover
They say, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. That idiom holds true quite literally in the case of ‘How To Be Human’ because the cover is nice and thus misleading. The only good thing about the book is that the chapters are short so you don’t have to suffer for too long. Also, the illustrations that accompany the chapters are fun to look at, making reading the badly written (and edited) somewhat preachy chapters just about bearable.‘How To Be Human’ is basically about what Bollywood director Rajkumar Hirani’s wife Manjeet Hirani, who is a pilot and motivational speaker, has learnt in and of life so far through her dog, Buddy, who was, if anyone remembers, Anuskha Sharma’s depressed dog in the 2014 movie PK, featuring Aamir Khan.
Though Manjeet was scared of dogs and would have never allowed one into her house, she couldn’t say no when her husband sent a six-week-old pup to their son, Vir. Earlier named Nikku, the pup then became Buddy because the Hiranis felt Nikku didn’t suit his vibrant, always-up-to-something personality.
As Manjeet got close to Buddy, she claims to have learnt invaluable lessons from him. She started writing blog posts on Buddy and his shenanigans and, as someone who with a keen interest in philosophy, she then found herself comparing his ways to people’s habits and wondering what Buddy would do in certain situations. ‘How To Be Human’ was the result of that contemplation.
As delightful as that idea sounds, and despite great reviews from Ranbir Kapoor and John Abraham, and a gushy foreword by Dia Mirza, ‘How To Be Human’ is not a book you will enjoy because the writing is sloppy and erratic. Although the author starts each chapter by singing praises about Buddy, it eventually leads to a rant and then ends with her telling you what you should and shouldn’t do or how you can make the world a better place.
Sometimes Manjeet manages to bring Buddy back in at the end of the chapter as an afterthought, having forgotten all about him while she went on and on about politics, health, society, and what not. It’s almost like she suddenly remembers that the theme of the book is ‘Life Lessons from Buddy Hirani’ and she can’t afford to digress anymore and has to quickly wrap up the chapter too.
It’s this erratic nature of the book, apart from the shoddy writing, that leaves you with a bad aftertaste, making you wonder why you picked up the book in the first place. Or maybe you can blame Ranbir Kapoor for that, whose two sentences on the cover are the only nicely written ones in the entire book.
