Fiction:

There were some big releases by big names and predictably they did well. Fifty Shades of Grey was perhaps the only surprise package but it had already topped charts internationally by the time it reached the Indian market.

a) Angel of the Dark:  Tilly Bagshawe continues the legacy of the master story teller Sidney Sheldon in this thriller. Popular among all ages.

b) Fifty Shades of Grey By E L James: This international best seller was much in demand. Perhaps it was the lure of the hitherto forbidden. However, the two sequels- FIfty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed did not do as well.

c) The Affair: Jack Reacher is fast catching the fancy of thriller enthusiasts across the country, particularly in the metros.

d) Sins of the Father: No suprise here. The Second novel of the Clifton Saga, it was a must read for all Archer fans.

e) Maharani Ruskin Bond’s latest book about the Maharani who drank too much has been on people’s bookshelves since its release

f) The Casual Vacancy: Again, this one was expected to be popular. When Rowling writes an adult book, all Harry Potter fans come looking. We had a tough time saying no to kids.

g) Sethji: Shobhaa De’s latest offering was eagerly rented by her fans.

h) The Bankster Ravi Subramanium’s new financial thriller was popular in the metros.

i) One Hundred Names When Cecilia Ahern writes, her loyal fans have to read.

j) The Forest of Stories: When Ashok Banker engages in a retelling of the Mahabharata it is bound to find many takers.

Non Fiction

The non fiction readers chose to stick to the existing best sellers like Discovery of India and Steve Jobs: An Autobiography.. However, among the new releases, there were a few surprises.

a) The Day I stopped drinking milk and other stories Sudha Murthy’s easy style and story telling once again drew people across the country/

b) Beautiful Country: Stories from Another India : At a time when India is churning and the youth is on the lookout for success stories, this book about the hidden face of India, found many takers, especially among college students and young professionals.

c) What Young India Wants : Chetan Bhagat’s latest offering. need we say more?

d) Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo’s peek at life in the slums of Mumbai was much appreciated.

e) Jugaad Innovation: Jugaad is the Indian way of life and a book that teaches you to be innovative and do more with less is bound to be popular.

Children

No surprises here. The kids read exactly what we expected them to, in addition to their Goosebumps, Geronimo Stiltons and Enid Blytons.

Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian The latest in the series of escapades by the criminal master mind Artemis Fowl found many takers among teh young ones.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney: It may have just been released but all copies of the book are always out.

The Serpent’s Shadow by Rick Riordan This was the final book of the Kane Chronicles. It had to do well

Did you read these books? What did you think of them? Do let us know.

We too have jumped into the bandwagon. Every 12th registration, purchase and subscription on the INDIAreads website today has been winning free gifts and vouchers. But why? I mean, I know it makes business sense. We love occasions – remember, the ‘Day” phenomenon that started out with a tribute to St Valentine and today encompasses every possible relation and emotion. Seriously, pick up any date, google it and you’ll find some day or the other. So yeah, there’s a business logic to it. Special occasions entail celebrations or gifts and that means fast buck. So I’m in, but darn this curiosity, I just had to know if there was more to this 121212 phenomenon. And so I decided to spend a day with google and yahoo and bing and all the other lovely search engines out there. Here’s what I found out. Btw everything that I put down here, you could find too with a little bit of effort. I am just making your life simpler – consider this as my 121212 gift to you.

1. This combination comes up only comes up once every century (just like 111111-ouch -101010, 090909 etc) and we all love unique! The next unique date is another 88 years away – Jan 1, 2101.

2. According to the ancient Mayan calender our Sun would have completed a revolutionary cycle of (hold your breath) 26,000 years. So yeah, the leaps taken by medical science notwithstanding, you are definitely not experiencing this day again. According to the Mayans this marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new period/cycle of evolution. Being optimists, we’ll ignore doomsday predictions (the claim that the world will end on December 21, 2012) and toast to a new beginning!

3. The Number 12 itself is special. It is one of the most easily divisible numbers and western tradition regards it as the most complete numeral. Hence 12 apostles, 12 days of Christmas, 12 signs of zodiac, 12 Gods of Olympus and 12 as the basis for time related calculations. Consider this: a year has 12 months, a day has 12 hours of day and 12 of night. An hour has 60 minutes (12*5) and minute, 60 seconds. Don’t ask me why the week doesn’t have 12 days though!

4. Numerology considers 3 and 9 to be lucky numbers, especially 3 because it stands for Jupiter which represents wealth. Think money. Now consider 12. 1+2 = 3. Bingo. Good number. Think 12.12.12 and we have 9. Good number again!

5. And now the Chinese angle. One is a yang number ruled by the sun and two a yin number ruled by the moon. Together the two represent perfect harmony – a blend of individualism and symmetry coming from the masculine energies of the sun and the feminine energies of the moon.

6. This is just fyi :In response to Doomsday preparations taking place globally, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific has declared 12/12/12 “Anti-Doomsday Day.”

7. And here’s  DYK: 12/12/12 came exactly 6 years, 6 months, 6 days after 06/06/06.

8. Let’s end on a musical note:  a 12.12.12 concert featuring Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stone, The Who and Paul McCartney will take place in New York’s Madison Square Garden tonight and will be witnessed by 2 million people globally.

So, do you still think today is just another day????

The picture of the flames was all I could make sense of at the time – the poems were in Urdu script, of which I knew too little to read even my name. How was it that I, having grown up in Delhi, could not read my paternal grandfather’s poems? ‘They stole it! And we also let it go,’ Zafar Moradabadi said mournfully, speaking of Pakistan and Urdu respectively.

Zafar was the man with whom I sat down to conquer the book’s mysteries. I said I didn’t want to learn to write, only to read. His face bloomed with concern. ‘You know you have a responsibility. You’re a poet’s grandson; what’s been done is there, for you to read and know. You say you want just to read; even that will only come when you can write.’ He was the first to admit that Urdu in India hadn’t really sunk as a language; it dominated television and cinema. He confessed that it was a question of script: what stood between me and my grandfather’s poetry. Using the word mizaaj, which is disposition, temperament and taste, he confessed ‘one’s mizaaj is contained in one’s script’.

Six months into my lessons with Zafar, I’d mastered the script’s meaningful single and double dots and mysterious elisions and I read my first Manto story about Bombay. Manto could evoke his world with a single detail. I was reading to see how he engaged his material so that a narrative seemed to spring naturally from it, a narrative that not only didn’t rely on ornate writing and description, but would have been obscured by it. So affecting was the experience that I wondered why I hadn’t grown up reading Manto. The answer was that he wasn’t taught widely in schools; he was locked into Urdu curriculum; Devanagari editions of his stories were hard to come by and English translations of his writing dense and bland – he had either been forgotten in India, or disowned. Feeling that India had too few writers of his caliber – either with the richness and breadth of his material or the simplicity of his prose – I sat down to do the first translation.

The challenges of translating Manto are considerable. What is rich, fluent prose in Urdu can appear florid in English. Translations are often criticized for being too literal, but in the case of Manto’s translators, I feel they haven’t been literal enough, that they have tried to rewrite the stories. My translations became a way for me to limit the effects of the intellectual partition Manto feared. Partition had left the subcontinent’s intellectual past fenced up with no-go zones. It has to be sorted through, excavated and reclaimed.

Manto: Selected Stories, translated by Aatish Taseer; 136 pp; Random House India; MRP 295. Buy or Rent books by Manto or Aatish Taseer now!!!!

Read an excerpt from the book at Aatish Taseer’s website

Even as we bid farewell to November, check out which of your favourite authors were November born….

You know this book signifies much more than a few stories strung together, right at the onset. Tania James has achieved an emotional connect with the reader by penning down some truly heart rending pieces. They strike a chord somewhere. At some specific junctures in the book, you get the odd feeling that James is deliberately touching a soft spot; digging through your iron clad flesh, and reviving the heart that you have safely hidden someplace deep. You’ve never really taken short stories seriously – not even the ones you’ve crafted yourself. For how much could a few pages possibly convey? What order of words, what string of sentences could possibly compare to the power of a novel? But you have to confess,  you’re rethinking it all.

The beauty of James’ writing lies in the fact that her characters don’t fit in your world – not a single thread of commonality can be detected – and yet, you feel a compelling connection to each of them. Perhaps, by constructing realities contrasting to yours, she is driving home the realisation that we’re all the same, across countries, continents and the world at large. We spend too much time in our comfortable cocoons, wallowing in self pity, making mountains out of molehills. We continuously try to validate our uniqueness, asserting by reason or by force that we’re different. Our struggles are different, our emotions are different. But are they? James answers this question in her own humbling, poignant way. So when you suddenly feel the pangs of jealousy, as Imam, the younger sibling witnesses the rise of his brother Gama, you’re wonderstruck. Surely, you’re too different from two wrestlers yearning for a title to find any common ground with them? But that’s where James’ genius probably lies– her stories do not seem to rely on characters or even plots. They’re relying on something much more powerful – the sentiment – an angle she has mastered brilliantly.

Her stories tell you that the bond between siblings is complicated. Yet, despite all odds, jealousies and rivalries, it is a bond that nature has nurtured. And you can’t mess with nature, can you?

The key to every story in the book is relationships, and James has understood their fragility well. You may have laughed uncontrollably at Ross Geller’s monkey comedy, but James’ Henry is anything but an object of ridicule. Henry represents the pet you gave up, if you ever did. There are passages in the book that make you smile like a child. Your feelings are mixed– there is a hint of nostalgia, combined with a massive amount of guilt. Sometimes you let go simply because you have no choice. Maybe some bonds are meant to break. Maybe they have a life span. And maybe if you went back, there won’t be anything left to go back to. Maybe your very own Henry has forgotten too. Her sentences are lovely, some of them more than the others. She writes in ‘Aerogrammes’, ‘Sometimes the accumulation of his silence seemed to heap upon him, as slowly as snow, until he felt he could no longer be seen.’ In that one line, she sums up every mild introvert’s constant dilemma.

Some of the stories hit too close to your heart. As you read through ‘The Gulf’, you realise that the title does not only signify what it pretends to. Distances in relationships are not merely geographical. You’re suddenly the little girl, curious, almost desperate to unravel the mystery about her father. Do you need to pay attention to the details? More importantly, did the author even want you to? In my opinion, her sole intention was to force you to smudge the details. Her book is not thriving on them, and frankly, with the quality of emotion it carries, it doesn’t even need to.

The farther you delve into the book’s pages, the more you realise that James has attempted to word the subtle undercurrents of many relationships; her writing is powerful, her stories heartfelt; her themes universal. She words the complications of familial ties. She lays out the subtle layers of insecurity more than once. She demonstrates the innocence of childhood, deftly entwined with the complexity of adulthood. She presents to you a collage that seems unfamiliar at first, but eventually, you realize that you know all the colours. You know the glue that sticks them together too. You know every piece of the puzzle she’s presenting. This is your territory. And eventually, we’re all born with territorial instincts, aren’t we?

You’ll like the book. Probably because you’ll find yourself in a little girl, or an old man, or a widow, or an insecure child or maybe in all of them. You won’t have to squeeze in. You’ll simply fit, even if only for a few lines or paragraphs. Nevertheless, you’ll find yourself!

Aerogrammes & Other Stories by Tania James

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Review by Reshmy Pillai

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Three facts I bet you did not know about marijuana and getting stoned!

1. We know Lord Shiva enjoys marijuana and loves getting stoned, but Lord Vishnu enjoys it too!!
2. In fact the probability of meeting Vishnu face to face is most when you are at your high’s highest – he has a whole secret cult called BoV or Boys of Vishnu, comprising only of stoners!
3. Marijuana smoke can help you identify maggots with naked eyes – no microscope needed, and it is also your shield against turning into zombies. Who needs another medicine, eh?

You learn all this and more as you wade through Jugal Mody’s terrific debut work – a book that is part satire, part religious reconstruction and part fantasy. Jugal takes us on an unconventional, out-of-this-world ride, one that could well have been a dramatic, action induced dream. Actually, by the end of the book, that seems like a distinct possibility. Toke, in a subtle manner, breaks some myths that we, the majority in the country – Hindus – have grown up with: most importantly, the one about Hinduism being a religion. The story suggests that it is anything but a religion; it is a way of life, the way of the universe. Toke brings together a most unusual group of people to sort out the biggest problem facing the human race – extinction; and Lord Vishnu – the creator himself is not very hopeful that Nikhil, the protagonist, will save his beloved creation, not that it matters much to him.

Toke takes us on a ride which starts with Nikhil – not much of a son, ‘loser’ type employee and extremely average human being – having one of his worst days at work. His project is behind schedule, his computer acting up, his project manager glaring down on him every few hours and his cubicle neighbor, ‘perfect employee’ Alok popping over the wall with very helpful remarks, specifically timed with the project manager’s rounds. Eventually, by half day, he ends up at his best friends – Aman & Danny – flat, who live to get stoned with the best weed procurable out there and the easiest way to enrage them is by calling ganja a drug. Fancy that! After this most appreciative day at work all Nikhil wants is to get stoned, and stoned he gets after his friends dig out their best stuff for his initiation. Herein the action begins. The following morning while his friends are still stoned, Nikhil encounters a talking crow who claims to be a Hollywood celebrity, and then Lord Vishnu himself. Plopped on his throne of clouds, smoking a joint, the Creator is relaxed and smiling. He had come looking for Aman and Danny but since they were out cold, he assigns Nikhil with a mission. Vishnu tells him that demons are taking over the world and the human race is in real danger of turning undead; demons will be attacking in a most technological manner and humans will become extinct in their current form and only exist as controlled zombies. So Nikhil needs to save the world because Vishnu is in no mood to take his tenth incarnation of Kalki. The only divine support that Vishnu can provide is a red button that is to be used when in panic; it will transport them to the happy place of the one who pressed it.

A troubled Nikhil and his cool-in-everything stoner friends eventually figure out that everything around them is turning green and that maggots are being fed to people through food. These vile creatures then take control of their brains and turn them into zombies. The whole world is turning into a zombie-land and the group is being hunted down everywhere they flee with the help of the panic button. Amidst all this, Nikhil’s crush from office who is now partly a zombie, is tagging along with him; two Japanese girls who believe that Aman and Danny are martial arts masters have also joined the motley group and are cutting down people with their martial arts skills. Alok, Nikhil’s favorite colleague, has also joined the adventure and Vishnu keeps video conferencing to call Nikhil a loser, give him time mandates to save the world and inform him of his vacation plans. Thus while God is on his side, he is away on vacation!

Jugal makes one of the most confident literary debuts in recent times with Toke. The narration is crisp and well edited, the story unconventional and well detailed; and the concept, mind boggling. The book is entertaining, intelligent and engaging. I have not read many books that engage you with the deeper concepts of philosophy and religion as effortlessly as this one does, that too without compromising on the entertainment factor. A definitely recommended read for the year.

Toke by Jugal Mody; HarperCollins Publishers India; 2012

Buy or rent from INDIAreads Online Library and Bookstore!

Were they the nerdy textbooks kinda people or were they the dreamy eyed romantics? Did racy mysteries catch their imagination or did they prefer to keep company with pirates, werewolves and wizards? Were they reading about the country- past, present and future or did they choose to let the fairies take over? Confession time!!! INDIAreads caught up with a bunch of very grown up authors – their book, She Writes has just been published by Random House India – and asked them to take a trip down memory lane so that we could meet the child in them….Here’s what we found out!!!

Favourite children’s book – the one that got you hooked?

Amrita Saikia: The Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton. The characters in them seemed absolutely real to me. As a little girl, I secretly prayed that I would be sent to a boarding school where I could have fun like those characters. Alas, this wish of mine was never fulfilled. (All you boarding school kids out there, stop gloating!!! Tell us, is life in a hostel just like Blyton told us it would be????)

Jyotsna Jha: Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson. The story revolves around a young boy who finds a secret map to a lost treasure. A gang of pirates know about the map too and our young hero must beat them in getting there first. Can he do it? Read this thrilling adventure novel to find out.

(And you thought little girls just enjoyed fairytales!!! We are as adventurous as any of you out there, maybe more )

Chitralekha Sarkar: Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. It was the ultimate adventure, full of pirate ships and mermaids in lagoons and other exotic situations. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson came a close second. Unfortunately Walt Disney never made a cartoon feature on Treasure Island like his wonderful “Peter Pan”. (Uh oh…Disney Studios, are you listening???)

Geeta Sundar: I love Alice in wonderland—everything about it, and still go back to it. It has the kind of imagination that catches a child’s fancy, a lovely story, wonderful characters and outstanding poetry-‘You are old father William’, Tweedledum and Tweedledee’ being my favourites. (oh Gee!!!)

The Character you identify yourself with???  (Now this one had us listening very very carefully!!! So, no smart quips here)

Geeta: Alice of course, from Alice in Wonderland!!!

Chitralekha: Peter Pan, the boy who never had to grow up, who went on fantastic adventures with a band of friends and always won!

Anisha Bhaduri: Apu from Bibhutibhushan Banyopadhyay’s Pather Panchali

Jyotsna: Huck in Huckleberry Finn. I could at once identify with the vagrant boy going through the joys and pains of growing up and coming to terms with the complications of the adult world.

Amrita: I always envisioned myself as the intelligent and brave-hearted Nancy Drew and imagined myself intelligently defeating the villains and solving all those mysteries.

MMM…MMM. That was interesting! Now you know why we insisted on children’s books!!! And here comes the final one…Your Bookscapade – the book adventure that got you into trouble Come on, ‘fess up!!!!

Sheela Jaywant: I was in trouble for reading all the time. I didn’t like studying text books, but story-books… i lived them at mealtimes, loo-times, all the time. I day-dreamed my teenage away!

Geeta: Well this is a confession that I am not going to enjoy. When we were in tenth standard, there was a small library besides the big one, that was right in front of our class, and it had a small gap in the glass through which a girl with thin hands could take out a book. Since I had the thinnest hands, I was elected to put my hands in and take out books. We read them and put them back but were found out. When asked, I confessed, but the other girls sportingly joined me and we had to kneel for an hour outside the mother principal’s office as a punishment! (Ouch ouch!!!)

Anisha: A Harold Robbins novel at age 12/13, deemed a most inappropriate read at that age. (Boy, were you asking for trouble!!!) Fortunately, I grew up in a household where reading was encouraged and the children were expected to be responsible for what they read and how they developed their reading habits. (Talk of Luck!!!)

Amrita: It was one of the Sweet Valley High books that got me into trouble when I was in the tenth standard, a few months away from my board exams. I got hold of this book from one of my friends and hid it in between my textbooks. One night, after dinner, when I was sure that everyone had slept, I took out the book and began reading, pretending to study one of my textbooks. But I was a terrible actor and my mother, a strict parent. I was caught red-handed. A few stern words and glares ensured that I stayed away from all books apart from my course books till exams were over.

HA ha…now did you enjoy that one??? We asked them a bunch of other questions too. Check out their answers in our Children’s Special Newsletter this month. To get a copy, write to literathon@indiareads.com

And a big thank you to these special authors for being so sporty and sharing their naughty and not-so-naughty moments with us.

For those of you who are curious to meet the wonderful women these girls have turned into, here’s a brief about them…

Currently, Penguin which is owned by the UK based Pearson group has 3500 employees and total annual sales to the tune of USD 1.7 billion. It’s repertoire includes authors like Amitav Ghosh (though not exclusively), Arundhati Roy, Zadie Smith, Fareed Zakaria and Jeff Kinney of the famous Wimpy Kid series.

Random House is currently America’s biggest publishing house. Owned by German media giant Bertelsmann, it has over 5300 employees and an annual revenue of USD 2.2 billion.

A company formed out of the union of two will have in its repertoire doyens like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie and best sellers like Dan Brown, E L James, Christopher Paolini, Patricia Cornwell . It is expected to have a turnover of USD 3 billion and control 27% share of the UK book publishing market and 25% of the US market. Insiders say that should the merger take place, Bertelsman is likely to own over 50% of the new company.

The union makes sense for the two giants simply because it would give them a much bigger market share, cut costs (estimates say the saving would be to the tune of USD 40 million at least) and most importantly, give them greater bargaining power against the big online retailers who have been dictating terms much to the consternation of the companies.

For the authors, however, this is bad news. It reduces their options and the number of bidders for their titles. Also it becomes more difficult for new authors to break through as this means on address less. However, in an era of self publishing, it may really not be so much of a challenge.  The impact on readers remains debatable. Some argue that as long as the separate imprints continue, the reader enjoys the same variety as before. However, a merger of imprints is normally inevitable (it is only the time taken for the merger that varies). This would mean fewer flavours for the readers palette.

Of course, for the Indian market the question is how this merger would impact the nascent publishing industry, especially the crop of newbies who have just come in with Rs 100-150 love stories penned by college students and young professionals? Will it mean that more and more debut authors will mvoe to the newer publishing houses or will the new arrangement also see mergers and consolidations with the market here? One can speculate, but it’s too early and the industry too volatile for any clear cut answers.

1.     Arrack predates Scotch and Vodka by centuries. Marco Polo apparently had a tipple in the 13^th century.

2.     It is not the same as raki from the Middle East, which tastes like liquorice. Or arkhi from Mongolia, which smells like fermented milk.

3.     It’s made from the juice of the coconut flower, plucked by crazy men in loin cloths, walking on 40 foot high tightropes.

4.     Arrack is consumed at Sri Lankan cricket matches, dodgy bars, nightclubs, office parties by everyone from hipsters to hip replacement patients.

5.     It’s best enjoyed with Ginger Ale and a plate of devilled meat. Some have it with coke. No one we know has tried it with tofu.

6.    Everyone agrees that frog tastes like chicken. And that arrack isn’t as bitter as whisky, or as sweet as rum. Everyone.

7.     There are 791 references to arrack in the novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew. You can count them.

8.    The 1771 recipe for Swedish Punch includes half a pint of arrack. A classic Arrack Sour contains lime juice, ice cubes and a ton of sugar.

9.    There are many types of arrack: Double Distilled, VSOA, Old Reserve, Blue and Pol. But the strongest and meanest is Extra Special Gal, a cross between paint thinner and cough syrup.

10.  After 2 drinks, you will be eloquent on the subjects of cricket and politics. After 5, you will develop an ear for baila music and will laugh at everything. If still awake after 10, you are most likely get beaten up.

Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka is the author of the Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, which won the 2012 Commonwealth Book Prize.

(To buy this interesting read that gives you a flavour of cricket, Sri Lanka and arrack, log on to www.indiareads.com)

Y is the tempestuous 21st century, sarcasm-sprouting IIM graduate who after much trepidation takes the plunge with steady, laid back, still-trying-to-get-over-his-small-town ways Vijay. Her reluctance is understandable – ask any 23 year old, independent metro girl who’s had the question popped. Living together is cool but marriage to a person who, in many ways is the antithesis of you? Absolutely not. Why they even think in different languages! She can’t remember what namaste is called in hindi (!!!) and he loses his tenacious command over English every time he gets agitated. Tough decision but our dear author knows it is the right one when said guy holds her head over the toilet seat without a wince. And thus the drama begins. Suddenly trousers and tee girl Y finds herself struggling to get into a saree to please her mom-in-law or plying pa-in-law with innumerable cups of tea and rhombus shaped rotis to win him over. Not that Mummyji and Papaji are the dreaded monsters-in-law portrayed in Ektaa Kapoor soaps. No, they are the sweet, cute, slightly conservative couple who recognize that while their bahu maybe a complete disaster in the kitchen, drink alcohol and wear short pants, their son finds her to be a great person and that, is enough. They don’t pop a vein, not even when said daughter-in-law throws a fit at 2 in the morning and stalks out of the house. Instead, mummyji calmly explains, “ Ladne ki kya baat hain? Arrey, kabhi main maan jaati hoon, kabhi wo maan jaate hain.” How profound!

And how very difficult to implement. Y and V discover that the real challenge is to get used to each other’s idiosyncrasies - his penchant for all things alu gobhi and her tendency to blow a fuse at the drop of a hat. You breeze through the first 120 pages with a smile on your face as you encounter their efforts to buy a house and witness Y’s driving lessons. And just as you think that this crazy but adorable couple has found their equilibrium, princess peanut decides to make an entry. Thus begins a whole new set of this-is-the-way-to-it battles when internet based wisdom finds itself at odds with good old tradition . Yashodhara portrays with ease and remarkable wit the struggles of a newly wed working couple as they learn to handle their pregnancy. However, it is after baby Anoushka is born that the book loses its pace and charm. The flow, realism and hey-that-could-be-me feel of the earlier chapters that compelled you to keep turning the pages is lost and the embellishments become more glaring. Some encounters, like the one when Y’s househelp raises a false alarm and has the entire locality on the streets at 2 am seem a little too far fetched. Hey, they could still be real but pardon me, if I find them a tad difficult to swallow.

Like most books by Indian authors, Just Married, Please Excuse has a fairly liberal dose of Hinglish sprinkled across it’s pages but Yashodhara’s colloquial style of writing ensures that it does not jar. Her language is contemporary, and yet thankfully it does not make a mockery of English, unlike a lot of new publications. For that alone, the author deserves our gratitude.

Fitzgerald of the Great Gatsby fame once said that to write a good book “you have to sell your heart” because when you begin you only have your emotions to offer. And that is exactly what Yashodhara does. Her candor evokes a sense of déjà vu. (Makes you wonder if this book truely is a work of fiction as the cover states or is it a memoir? Y, are you listening? ) If you are trying to find your niche in the big urban jungle, every page of the book, barring the last few chapters perhaps, is likely to remind you of an instance in your life or of someone around you. And if you are still enjoying the relative coziness of small town India as it races to meet the metros, you’ll get a glimpse of what life has in store for you. Relax, it’s not bad; just insane! A little bit like Marriage

Title: Just Married, Please Excuse; By: Yashodhara Lal; ISBN: 9789350292273
Cover price: INR 199;  Format: Paperback; Genre: Fiction; Published by: HarperCollins Publishers India

Available for rent/sale @ INDIAreads Online Library and Bookstore!