Saturday, August 13, 2011

Back to the roots


My first book, What Would You Do to Save the World? was published in 2005 with a fair deal of apprehension. India had not seen much “chick-lit” writing, and mine was the first of its kind. The “chick-lit” novel, as the term suggests, implies a light, frothy, entertaining read and the main reason women enjoy these books is because they can relate to the journey of the female protagonist.

These books bring to light so many issues that urban women face and we as readers fight their battles with them vicariously, relating so many aspects of their lives to ours. There is a certain amount of depth to these stories and a certain value-add to the reader which has led to the huge success of this genre. Now, six years later, the Indian market is flooded with chick-lit books, and unfortunately several of them don’t really get the point. Chick-lit is not just about boy problems, wardrobe malfunctions and girl trouble, it goes much deeper than that.

Live from London, Parinda Joshi’s debut novel, had a promising storyline, but much to my disappointment, just scraped the surface. The novel begins with the protagonist of the book, Nishi Gupta, an aspiring singer, making an appearance on the popular UK reality show, Britain’s Got Talent. She embarrasses herself by her lacklustre performance, but in the process gets motivated to give her dream a real shot. Nishi gets an internship (without too much trouble) at a well-known record company in England. Conveniently for Nishi, her team is in charge of the Canadian-Indian pop sensation Nick Navjot Chapman, who falls for Nishi.

Full report here Asian Age

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