One thing is for sure. Whatever regrets I had about giving up my career in investment banking, I don’t any more. I have to admit that I did feel twinges of doubt when the markets were soaring and all my colleagues were taking home upwards of a crore (10 mil) while I was struggling to eke out a tenth of that.
I’ve been through such a bear phase before, in the year 2000. And living through two such phases is just too much for any one person to bear. Okay, poor choice of words there. I should have said endure. I personally know at least two people from the industry who’ve suffered fatal heart attacks in their early thirties. All right, perhaps it wasn’t the pressure alone that did them in. Their almost completely non-vegetarian diet and incessant smoking and drinking probably also had something to do with it.
We are in for a rough time here in India as well. It is a global pandemic and in these integrated times global flows of liquidity decide what course a country’s development will take. Domestic liquidity was stemmed in earlier to fight inflation and now companies are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to borrow abroad. So how do they carry on their operations?
We are in for lower GDP growth, job, cuts, lower savings, lower investment and, therefore, lower growth. What was once a virtuous cycle of positives on all the above counts is fast turning into a vicious cycle. How long it could take to sort itself out – 12 months, 18 months, 24 months or more, is anybody’s guess.
What all this means for a writer is of course, new story ideas to reflect newer realities. For example, many thriller writers almost went out of business after the end of the cold war between the USA and USSR. Till they found terror. Perhaps it is time to think the same economically?
When tall, suave, handsome Kaustav Kapoor walks into her office, ditzy private investigator Kasthuri (aka Katie) Kumar has anything but detection on her mind. He is, after all, a scion of Bollywood’s first family—perhaps he has a role for her? Perhaps she will, at last, get to sashay down the red carpet in a designer gown, with flash bulbs following her every move?
But Kapoor’s intentions are much more prosaic: he wishes Katie to trace the heroine of his new blockbuster (and, if Katie’s read the glossies correctly, his life) who is mysteriously AWOL. Despite her misgivings, Katie finds herself unable to refuse the task entrusted to her, and thereon follows a bewildering hunt for the film star across a trail of corpses.
And if that isn’t excitement enough, she has to contend with the maddening and mysterious, but, oh-so-hot, Tejas Deshpande.
The first in a brand new detective series.
IN BOOKSTORES NOW.
Smita Jain's Weblog 
Hi Smita,
You mean writers should know how to diversify. Agreed, too much of specialisation is risky–whether we’re talking of investment portfolio or a writer’s domain. Let us then choose something evergreen, say love triangle or good fellow killing the bad ones to write about, and forestry and grain-trading for parking our money.
Thanx. Yours is a nice blog to browse.
Nanda
http://ramblingnanda.blogspot.com
http://remixoforchid.blogspot.com
“For example, many thriller writers almost went out of business after the end of the cold war between the USA and USSR”
It’s no wonder why some of the greatest Russian and European novels came out of a period of oppression in communist dictatorship regimes. There was just so much more to write about.
So if the credit crunch and the economic downturn last a year or two, we should be seeing some good literature on the subject. As far as I know, fictional writing about a global financial crisis is practically an unexplored genre (not counting dystopian science fiction).
@AN Nanda, welcoem to my blog. You are so right…a love triangle is like gold isn’t it? safe haven in uncertain times.
@Clever Doll, not really…think ‘A Stone for Danny Fisher.’
@AN Nanda, welcome to my blog. You are so right…a love triangle is like gold, isn’t it? A safe haven in uncertain times.
@Clever Doll, not really…think ‘A Stone for Danny Fisher.’