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IT’S crazy, it’s zany, and, of course, it’s chic...what is more, it’s spinning an entire generation of yuppies into a tizzy. Chick lit is here to stay. Bindis, saris and bangles happily infuse the book covers that were distinctively pink and illustrated with lipsticks, martini glasses and stilletoes. Having proved their mettle, young Indian women professionals are now adding another dimension to their multi-tasking personalities. They are carving an identity as writers, too. Move over Helen Fielding, Cecilia Ahern and Sophie Kinsella. Advaita Kala, Anuja Chauhan, Anita Jain and Smita Jain are here to conquer and capture not only the mindscapes, but also jingling cash registers. These aggressive and articulate writers depict the angst and anxieties that are not only their own, but that of an entire generation. Having burnt their fingers, they are now licking them, tasting a heady brew of success. The sky-rocketing ‘sales figures’ of chick lits in the Indian market have their own story to tell.
This year the books that made waves were: Advaita Kala’s Almost Single (HarperCollins India) that sold 15,000 copies in 10 months and has gone in for a fifth reprint. It will be republished in the US by Bantam Dell early next year. An executive with the ITC group of hotels, Kala managed to flesh out her feisty protagonist Aisha Bhatia so graphically that the latter’s quest for Mr Right echoed in the recesses of the hearts of those young women who have moved out of parents’ protective fold only not far enough to soar on their own.
Marrying Anita (Bloomsbury) by Anita Jain, aptly subtitled as A Quest for Love in the New India is written from the single woman’s point of view as the gutsy heroine leaves the comfort zone of New York to search for roots in India, after "a decade of Juan Carloses and short-lived affairs with married men and emotionally bankrupt boyfriends and, oddly, the most painful of all, the guys who just never call". A journalist who has worked in many countries across the globe, Jain inverts the stereotypical quest for a suitable bride by tracing the journey both within and without of the articulate Anita for love in emerging India loaded with numerous exciting possibilities.
Written in witty, irreverent style, these books are replete with bitchy bosses, female bonding and booze parties, nosey neighbours and overbearing moms and the quest for Mr Right. Feisty young women being mirrored are what the urban English-speaking women can easily identify and empathise with. Since their breathless and mad-cap lives leave no time for heavy-duty literature, these books are major de-stressors as attention spans shrink directly in proportion to increasing workload and paypackets. Caught in the bind or rather flux between tradition and modernity, these writers shun the middle class baggage that is at odds with their liberal upbringing and give readers what they look for, love and laughter aplenty.
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The world of champagne brunches and beer
soirees is as real to them as are dating websites, Karva Chauth,
swamis and astrologers. Anuja Chauhan, an advertising professional with
Pepsi, whose tagline "There’s nothing official about it!"
was a grabber, packs the double-delight of worlds of cricket and
advertising (both with an equally high glamour quotient) to come up with
The Zoya Factor (HarperCollins India) which describes the romance
of Zoya Solanki, the 27-year-old mid-level advertising executive from
Delhi’s Karol Bagh, who meets her Prince Charming in Nikhil Khoda,
the dashing skipper of the Indian cricket team. The Zoya Factor
sold 20,000 copies in the first print run.
Kkrishna’s
Confessions (Westland)
is an action-filled page-turner detailing the escapades of a TV serial
writer and is a product of Smita Jain’s association with the
entertainment industry. Kkrishna is the 20-something impulsive, gutsy
and unapologetically ambitious script writer of TV soaps who wants to
retain her long-running hugely successful primetime show Kkangan
Souten Ke, battling a writer’s block and the yearning for fellow
writer Dev Trivedi. Writer Smita Jain is a trained economist with a
degree in finance and has switched gears from investment banking to
writing screenplays for TV and films.