Crime Fiction

Somebody asked me the other day if writing crime fiction was significantly different from writing any other fiction. At first glance it would appear that it is not. After all, crime fiction is like telling any other story. It has to have a plot, a properly paced story graph, character development graph, conflict, resolution etc etc.

However, I think crime fiction is probably the more difficult to write because it requires the most careful crafting. You have to keep track of so many things. What actually happened? Who are the characters? What are they saying? Are they lying (duh!)? If so why? All the threads have to be tied up and all the loopholes plugged.

Then there is the question of detail. How much detail is too much detail? It is generally agreed that if your PI knows it, your readers should, too. However, it has to be given in a clever and interesting way or the readers will zone out.

It is considered bad form to hide vital information from readers and then rejoice when they fail to guess who the real killer is. One has to constantly remember that your readers will always be trying to second guess you. Therefore it is a real challenge to give out all the information and still retain suspense.

Thank You For Smoking

Disclaimer: Two back to back reviews of Jason Reitman’s films is a mere coincidence (facilitated by the purchase of a brand new DVD player) and not a premeditated act. The reviewer, any one in her immediate family or her pet cat, are not being paid, in cash or kind, by Reitman. The reviewer claims, in her defense, that she didn’t know Thank You for Smoking was Reitman film. It had been lying with her for the longest time and the only reason it didn’t get viewed (and reviewed) earlier was its advanced format, a format the reviewer’s former, antediluvian player pouted at.

Thank You for Smoking is a satirical look at the intrigues of the PR Machinery of Big Tobacco. The story is that of Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), the spokesperson for Big Tobacco. Naylor is a glib spin doctor whose arsenal consists of four words  –  convince, confuse, deflect, bribe, and he uses them effectively.

Hell, he can make anti – tobacco lobbyists look bad while sitting next to a lung cancer patient with all the outward and pity inducing symptoms – bald pate, wheelchair bound, stick thin, sallow complexion – of the vitiating disease. The scene where he goes to his son’s school to give a talk on his job and almost gets booted out for telling seventh graders that smoking isn’t bad is too funny.

In his own words, Naylor’s job is ‘to talk’ and he does that tirelessly. He spins and spins and spins. All the time. He has few friends and none outside his line of work. The two friends that he has are all from his line of work, i.e., spin doctors for Big Gun and Big Alcohol, or, as they, self-deprecatingly call themselves, Merchants of Death. They meet regularly to vent and bitch about do-gooders.

The only genuine relationship he has is with his son which is one of mutual love and respect.

Naylor is Now conflict enters his life from various sources. A senator from Vermont, Finnistre (William Macy) is threatening to go more graphic about the warning labels on cigarette packets and the Marlboro Man is threatening to lash out at Big Tobacco for giving him cancer and teen smoking (Big Tobacco’s bread and butter) is at an all time low.

No problem. Naylor has the fix for all. However, all the good work Naylor’s done threatens to come to nought when a sexy reporter (Katie Holmes) seduces him into spilling all and a bunch of anti-tobacco lunatics kidnap and poison him with nicotine patches. Things come to when he has to make a choice about his son’s future.

The story is as much about how Naylor goes about solving these problems as about his relationship with his precocious son whom he takes along with him everywhere.

The film is hysterical. The characters are all stereotypes. All the characters are caricatures. Special mention to Rob Lowe’s Hollywood Superagent and Robert Duvall’s’ smoke-till-I-die Big Tobacco chief. There are no ‘deep’ moments, and yet it is extremely effective anti smoking film. Yes, don’t let the title fool ya. The film works because there is no preaching of any kind – subtle or overt. Everyone gets their ass taken and nobody on either side of tobacco fence gets spared.

It is not Reitman’s best film – amongst the three films I’ve seen, I would rate it after Up in the Air and Juno. But even Reitman’s worst (and debut) effort is right up there with the best of the industry.

Statutory warning: This film kills with laughter.

Piggies on the Railway is now Retailing!

For those of you who can’t wait *winks* and for those with more practical considerations (like saving  muchos rupees), you can order your copy here.

Up in the Air

Take a film that’s tagged as a recession romantic comedy, put in George Clooney in it, marry the two and what do you get? A light, breezy film, right? Wrong. Up in the Air is actually a meaningful film masquerading as a romcom.

Meet Ryan Bingham (Clooney), a man who is fires people on behalf of bosses who are too chicken to do it themselves. He travels 300 plus days a year, which means he has to spend ‘65 miserable days at home.’ He has no friends and a family he’s barely in touch with. He is comfortably ensconced in a ‘cocoon of personal detachment.’ And who can blame him? Many policemen, doctors and people in difficult jobs get somewhat desensitised over time in order to function.

What he has, however, is gold membership of all travel related clubs and a frequent flier mile count that’s outta this planet. If he can help it, he never spends on anything unless it somehow adds to his miles. After all, the ten million mile number, which happens to be his goal, doesn’t happen by itself.

He meets a kindred soul, Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) in the first class (?) lounge at an airport. Sparks fly over a deliciously double entendre conversation involving phrase like ‘How Big’ and ‘impress me’, only they are referring to cards classification and club membership / benefits. Soon they’re jumping into bed, on their way to a casual fling. Of course, with their crazy travel schedules setting the next date is not an easy task. Still, one is managed some three months later when he’s in Fort Lauderdale and she’s in Miami. Out come the laptops and the relevant weekend is marked on the calendar.

Meanwhile, back at office in Omaha, Nebraska, enter the fresh-faced young recruit Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) and the man who fires people for a living is in danger of becoming redundant himself. Natalie comes up with the idea of firing people via video conferencing thereby saving the company beaucoup travel dollars.

However, what she possesses in bright ideas, she lacks in experience. Therefore Clooney is roped in to show her, well, the ropes. Clooney effortlessly slips into the role of a mentor and teaches her everything from the value of buying the right luggage to the morning after protocol post a one-night stand. In the process, some of her youthful hope and enthusiasm rubs off on his cynical side and he decides to take a chance on love.

The film, doubtless, will strike the right chord with the viewers especially in US and Europe. Which is precisely why the film was made, I suspect. To cash in all the recession blues hanging heavy all around. What I didn’t expect was that the makers would come up with an exceptional film in the process. I’ve seen Jason Reitman’s Juno, and while I thought it was a pleasant enough film, I didn’t think it was outstanding.

However, Up in the Air is not only a gem of a film, it delivers a sucker punch right in the solar plexus. It is insightful, edgy pastiche of the modern, jet-setting corporate culture with its mindless obsession with material possessions. It doesn’t have any forced or unrealistic situations and/or cartoon characters which we’ve come to expect from comedies. Razor sharp dialogue is the only concession the film makes to the genre. The film is both funny and poignant in parts. Given the theme, the film doesn’t weigh you down at any point. Well, except during Natalie Keener’s first firing episode. I have to admit, I felt so bad for Mr. Samuels I bawled like a baby.

On the whole, however, it is, as it promises, a mature comedy. As you can tell, I really, really, really liked the film.

Note: not to be seen when you’ve just been laid off yourself, lost a loved one or generally when PMSing.

Keep The Change – Book Review

Here’s a book review I did for Businesworld recently.

Just Another Doomsday Theory

I heard an intriguing doomsday theory the other day. Now, I love doomsday theories. They make good fodder for my stories. The theory I heard then is that 2012 will definitely happen.

For those who don’t know the significance of the year 2012 (where have you been the past few months and why haven’t you watched the movie?), there exists an ancient Mayan Calendar System which predicts the end of the world in the aforementioned year. Of course, like all doomsday theories, this one too has naysayers who claim nothing of the sort will happen and that doomsday mongers have drawn this erroneous conclusion based on the fact that the calendar ends on winter solstice (or is it equinox?) 2012.

According to this intriguing new theory, the world will definitely end, only not in the volcanoes-erupting-Earth-caving-in-Sun-getting-outta-control kinda way but in a more sophisticated financial Armageddon kinda way. So you’ll have a situation where the banks and bourses have collapsed, asset prices have collapsed and there is hyperinflation. Unable to afford food, people will die of starvation and there will massive looting and vandalism. What we will have eventually is massive geo-socio-politico (and any other o you can think of) unrest.

The reason: The US economy is on a headlong collision course. The levels of debt and unemployment are extraordinary and you have a set of politicians who are out to destroy the currency. Not bad enough?

Picture Spain, one of the bigger European economies. Its economy is in worse shape; the housing sector which was the driver of growth there has completely collapsed and thirty per cent of the population between the ages of 18-25 is without jobs. To make matters worse they have the common currency, the Euro. Otherwise the natural thing would have been to devalue the currency and somehow get growth back on track. As things stand today, they are staring at massive deflation and that is never good for growth.

Then there is China where the Central bank has been conducting the most extraordinarily inflationary experiment and flooded the system with liquidity. As the result there are huge asset bubbles everywhere and danger of hyperinflation.

You see where I’m going with this? No? Rest assured, neither do I? All I know is I’m going to liquidate all my stock market holdings and stuff the cash inside my mattress. After all, during the conditions reigning at the time, I just might be able to afford a packet of sugar.

Random Thoughts

Australian Open is over and so are my days of vegetating in front of the telly. *sigh* No more excuses. Now I have my butt down to work. I make a half-heated move to slide my butt off the bed. Okay, but before I go, I really should figure out what else happened while I was away. So I randomly switch channels and discover:

A) Man U won their match against Arsenal 3-1. I try to get excited but find I’m unable to care. I do follow the Premier League but only because several friends are football fanatics (read Manchester United) and it is impossible to have a conversation with them unless you know who’s where in the premier league points table. In fact, I currently support Chelsea only to piss them off. Chelsea vs ManU should be cracker. Meanwhile I’m more curious about the Russian Billionaire and owner of Chelsea. I wonder if wasshisname is on his yacht with a bevy of models. But since the boat comes with an anti-paparazzi photo shield, there’s no way anyone is gonna find out is there? BTW, there’s Abramovich owning Chelsea, Usmanov part owning Arsenal…what’s with Russian billionaires owning English FCs?

B) There’s some furore going on over some BT Brinjals. Everyone is screaming at a beleaguered Jairam Ramesh and I ask myself if I want to find out what fuss is about. The answer is an emphatic no. I mean I do like the occasional baingan bharta but not enough to try and make sense of the din. I move on.

C) A nine year old girl has been raped in Goa. Hold on there’s something that puzzles me. As I listen further, I find the girl is Russian. And suddenly it’s all very clear. Ah, so that’s how she escaped the first eight years and nine months unscathed.

D) The stock market is down but not enough to interest me. Yet.

E) Some Nooria Yusuf or Haveli chick went on a demolition derby after consuming…hold on, one can of beer??!!!! Come on, you can lie better than that. I am the worst drinker around and get buzzed when I’m merely down half a glass, but even I can’t get drunk enough to ram a taxi and run over traffic constables on one can of beer. Pop a date rape drug and pretend amnesia. When you ‘come to’ say someone spiked your drink while you were looking elsewhere. Shout rape and become the victim instead. Deflect suspicion from your homicidal jaunt.

*Sigh* Time to get a move on. Truly. But hey, what’s that? I’ve got a message from a friend. It’s Margaritas in the afternoon today. I guess work can wait another day.

Behold, the Sex Goddess

As I was posting the link yesterday, I got thinking about the stories I’ve been asked to comment on in recent times.

1. Do women prefer cold cash to hot sex? My reply: Of course. It’s a no brainer.
2. Are men better at writing sex than women? Do women get soppy, and bring too much emotion into, writing about what is primarily a physical act? My reply: Men write porn, women write erotica. Depends on what you prefer. (Can’t find the link)
3. ‘Do Bad girls go places?’ or is it just a smart phrase? My Reply: D-uh! (Can’t find the link)
4. Then of course the piece de resistance, the futuristic story I was asked to write about a scenario where women rule the world and men are their sex slaves.

Then I got thinking about search terms that people employ to, and successfully, to arrive at my blog: Smita Jain sex (easily tops the list), kinky sex India, hot naked teens, hot lesbian fuck videos (don’t know where that came from), middle aged aunty sex (DEFINITELY don’t know where that came from), sex.com (okay, that I can understand).

WTF?! Going by this one would think I’ve written a Jonathan Black! Guys, it’s only chicklit. All right, all right, so I do have some sex in my books, but it’s only max two-three scenes. Okay, okay, so it’s four-five scenes, but still. It’s hardly enough to bestow upon me the title of expert. Or is it?

Boys Don’t Cry

Sometime ago, the Times of India was doing a story on how more and more men are shedding tears these days. They wasnted my opinion on whether it has suddenly become acceptable, fashionable even for men to cry? Or are these men sissies and the fact remains that real men don’t cry?  

I had forgotten about this story and finding it was quite serendipitous. Interesting read. And not only for my expert take :-).

Just something I wrote for Mail Today

The brief given to me was:

Author and scriptwriter Smita Jain writes on a futuristic world (10 years or so) where women rule the bedroom with their sexual demands being met by the men who share their bed. It’s the men’s DUTY to keep women satisfied throughout the night — a world where orgasms for women is the order of the night, and the men go out of their way to make sure she is more than satisfied. Write a bit about your new book if you like or write bits from your research for the book…  a sort of a teaser about the book and about men finally finding the G-spot. Ahem Ahem! 

“Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.”

Katoosh! The whip crack has the cowering man, shall we say, springing to attention and more than willing to fulfil the woman’s needs. He gets to work and a few minutes later, ejaculates an innocuous white liquid.

In yet another bedroom, the man frantically probes the anterior wall of his boss’s vagina (or if that is too risqué: tries to locate his partner’s G-Spot). She has expressed a desire to have a baby. She is ovulating and stimulated. All she needs is an orgasm. Yet another one. And he only has a window of five minutes to locate the pea-sized erogenous zone. Failure would mean she having to do the dirty work herself.

Ah, success! The boss lady is screaming her head off in excitement. He heaves a sigh of relief and starts planning her next big O. She’s going to need many more of those before the night is over and he’d better oblige or he can kiss that promotion good bye.

It is year 2050. As predicted by the Mayan calendar, the world did end in 2012. But not in the cataclysmic Armageddon type of way. It was but a subtle shift in the Earth’s plane as a result of it moving into a higher dimension. As we know, no major transformation comes about without chaos. And so it was with Earth.

New species, more suited to the changed environment, emerged. Many older species that were unable to adapt simply vanished. The few that survived were left with mutations. Amongst the notable changes was the death of the Y chromosome, and with it, the end of testosterone, the hormone inducing violent, aggressive behaviour.

In the new world order, nature has righted to its natural feminist state. The male, always thought of as a genetic parasite and deriving his power from his role in propagating the species, is impotent in every which way.

Science had already demonstrated that the female of the species is capable of reproducing without male…er…contribution. Now she is capable of creating the perfect XX offspring all by herself. All a woman needs to create life is an orgasm. Multiple ones in order to have a higher success rate.

Boardrooms and bedrooms have been taken over by women and men have been reduced to little more than slaves. The pretty ones get invited to sexually gratify their female bosses and ugly ones get shafted to dead-end jobs.

What happens when the existing male population dies out, you ask? Well, they’re simply cloned in laboratories. 

Meanwhile, in her chambers at the Vatican, her holiness the pope is busy rewriting or, shall we say, righting history:

“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Eve, and she slept: and She took one of her ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from woman, made she a man, and brought him unto the woman.
And Eve said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: he shall be called Man, because he was taken out of Woman.” (Genesis Revised 2:21-23)