Priyanka Chopra’s Unfinished is incomplete; don’t expect any fireworks in this boring memoir

First things first. I have always believed Priyanka Chopra to be the most sorted of them all when it comes to her core acting capabilities and her professional choices. Right from her first Bollywood leading lady act in Andaaz to the way she held her own in Bajirao Mastani despite Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone being in the title roles, the national award winning actress has been an epitome of grace and is a formidable persona.

Hence, I expected her memoir Unfinished to be a largely impressive account of her life and times as well. After all, for someone who has been living a supremely enviable professional life ever since she turned Miss World a couple of decades back, there is a lot that could have been in Unfinished. As it turns out, the 230-page book actually makes for a rather plain read. There are anecdotes, yes, but largely those that may have been impressionable for her, and not necessarily for the reader. There are family accounts, yes, but for a reader they turn out to be rather repetitive and not so engaging.

Still, considering these are things personal to Priyanka, it is understandable that she wanted to say things as they are, and it is entirely her prerogative. While one can’t be judgmental around that, what one expects is for the stories to be told in a far more exciting way. Here, it all starts from point A (childhood) to B (boarding school days) to C (her stay in America during her early teens) to D (beginning of her professional career). The narrative is rather linear and there aren’t too many ‘ooh’ or ‘aww’ moments.

What is missing in detail is her professional career in Bollywood, which lasted a good 15-odd years at least. It all starts and closes in a matter of one chapter and again, though for Priyanka this actually works as she wanted to talk about her life beyond movies, for a large part of the (Indian) audience, there is a sense of incompleteness that comes in. You want to know a lot more about her work, her interactions with her co-stars, the challenges that she faced, the way she fought it all out, the wins, the heartbreaks and so on.

Instead, all you get to read about are an anecdote or two but even those have already been pre-released to publicise the book. If you have read them, then just stop there; you have mostly read it all. Beyond that, don’t expect any hidden truths to be unveiled, any spice in the proceedings, or any controversies being brought to the fore again. Again, that’s Priyanka’s choice as she knew best, and if that meant that the book receives a polarised response from different set of audiences looking for different things, then so be it.

As for what she wanted to talk about, it’s all in there, right from her relationship with her immediate family members to her beauty pageant sojourn, to her stint in Bollywood, to her debut as a singer/performer, to her venturing into her own productions, to her entry into Hollywood, to her whirlwind romance with Nick Jonas, to her eventual marriage with him, to the way she is building her career out there in the West, to the association that she has with UNICEF.

All of this makes one thing clear about Priyanka — she is an achiever. For a woman who is still two years shy of 40, she definitely has seen it all and done it all in quick time — she has done things most people would find it difficult to accomplish in two lifetimes.

However, when it comes to telling it all through a book that makes for not just an educative and enlightening read but an entertaining ride as well, there is something left to be desired, for sure.