A Very Nice Review in The Asian Age

Chick lit meets crime fic, with a dash of fun

Normally I’m a little sceptical about this whole new chick-lit-meets-crime-fic genre that seems to have mushroomed recently. It either winds up being really angsty (tough female heroine has never found love and is treated badly) or really cliché (she is saved in the nick of time by her handsome, studly supervisor) or just unable to stick to a genre (skipping wildly from here to there in the attempts to be Agatha Christie meets Marian Keyes.) Anything that is ‘something meets something’ is usually a book you should avoid. Remember that advice. It’ll come in handy someday.

But, I’m always happy to change my mind. (Isn’t that one of the very fun prerogatives of being a woman?) And so when Piggies On The Railway landed on my bedside reading pile, I picked it up with interest, but not much hope. And boy, was I wrong. This book made me eat my words….Read the rest of it.

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I feel like a model

And as I write this heading above, the chicklit writer in me can’t resist adding: Which means fabulous. Okay so I also feel exhausted from too much exercise, faint from too little food, asphyxiated from too many cigarettes…but I’m thin. As the wise Kate Moss said, articulating what women worldwide know to be the gospel truth, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”

However, that is not what this post is about. Earlier this week I felt that that Piggies’ publicity needed another push. So I logged into Gmail, opened the chat window and wrote to my PR person (henceforth known as AT).

I began the conversation with my usual, I’m not feeling the love. Which I think it’s a cute opening salvo. AT, however, complains, saying she feels I’m doing diva act. The whole I’m-throwing-a-tantrum-because-I’m feeling-ignored which, frankly, is as far from the truth as John Abraham is from making it to the A list.

I am not a diva. I don’t demand round the clock attendance. Okay, so she can call me once a day and affirm to me that my books are selling like hot cakes and that I’m the best there is. And occasionally, just occasionally, like once a day, she can send me a compilation of press clippings also affirming the same.

Oh dear. In my defence, I said I’m not a diva. I didn’t say I’m not a neurotic writer.

Anyway, coming back to the Piggies publicity push, I mean it was topping all bestseller lists and everything but that’s precisely why I felt we needed to prod it along NOW. “Stoke the fire while it’s burning and all that, old girl,” I said.

I was taken aback when she agreed. “Quelle surprise,” I said, jumping across the English channels, if only linguistically.

She said that she had already contacted numerous publications and arranged for me to comment on a host of issues for various publications. Then she logged out of chat and called me on my cell. “Hold on,” she said. “D just called me. She’s on the other line. I’ll conference you.”

“Hey, D,” she said after a while. “So as I was saying why don’t you get Smita’s views on Handy Investment Tips for Housewives?”

Now AT had either forgotten to tell D she had conferenced me, or she’d told her, but had also encouraged her to be free with her opinion about me. Fire the gun from someone else’s shoulder and all that. I’m leaning towards the latter.

“Smita Jain? But she’s a…chicklit writer!” The way D said the last sentence, with a pause after a as though she was looking for the right word, and a kind of squealy emphasis on the word chicklit, left me in no doubt that she didn’t exactly mean it was like asking Einstein to comment on high school physics.

Derision. From a journo who’d just last week written that the French Open final was played between Rafael Nadal and Roland Garros! This was almost too much to bear.

I was left fuming. As Kasthuri says in Chapter One, “if (s)he thought (s)he was dealing with a brainless twit (s)he had another think coming. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him(her)  about my excellent, eighty-percent-plus-all-the-way academic record, and multiple degrees in economics and finance just to drive home the point.”

But of course I didn’t. I didn’t want to upset D. I didn’t want her writing Smita Jain’s latest novel Piggies on the Railway is based on a popular nursery rhyme, did I?

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Launch Pics

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Piggies on the Railway – A Review in the Tribune

Nonchalantly Insolent

ALAS! Lady-detectives, Indian lady-detectives are elusive literary creatures. Despite the plethora of contemporary characters that the modern Indian writer has cajoled out of the mighty pen, this earthling has failed to evolve.

But wait a minute. Here comes one waltzing in on her wannabe “black Fendi peep toes”—and six inches high no less!

Enter Kasthuri Kumar aka Katie, detective with a buzz and two bumbling feet. And ‘seasoned’ chick-lit writer Smita Jain pulls her off with elan. Smita knows what she is getting into. Her successful debut novel ‘Kkrishnaa’s Konfessions’ is compounding nto a screenplay for a Bollywood film and as she herself says: “I know I can write a decent murder mystery.” Smita is also curious, “Did you guess who the killer is?” she asks fervently. And I must confess I did not. I was on the wrong railway track all along (much to this author’s delight!) and I certainly enjoyed the bumping ride!

Read the rest of the review

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Book Launch – Invite

Dear All,

Piggies on the Railway is officially being launched on the 24th at the Park Hotel, Parliament Street, New Delhi at 5 p.m. and once again on the 27th at Landmark bookstore, Gurgaon at 7 p.m.

Do try and make it for one or both events. If you are planning on coming, do drop a little RSVP (as an email on the id given on the sidebar) so that the catering guys can provide for you 🙂

Landmark Invite

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Piggies in Indian Express

In 1929 British crime writer Ronald Knox codiefied a set of 10 commandments, a decalogue for all crime writers. The rules included that no Chinamen should feature in the plot, only one hidden passage or room was allowed and that the friend of the detective, the Watson, must not hide any thoughts from the reader.

Mumbai-based Smita Jain cares nothing for these rules: her detectives are smart, stylish, urban women who will fix their make up while chasing a lead. Her first offering, Kkrishnaa’s Konfessions sold well and Jain decided to pen another titled Piggies on the Railway (Tranquebar-Westland).

But with her new private investigator Kasthuri Kumar, Jain is creating a detective series for her readers. “You can call it chicklit-cum-crime. There is a mystery, a ditzy detective more in tune with glamour and celebrity, dishy dudes, bitchy women and smart repartee,” says Jain.

Read the full article.

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Oye Luck, Luck Oye

You know, it occurred to me that I’ve been waxing about writing for so long – what one needs to do to get published or produced or whatever – and I left out the most important thing. Luck.

You can have talent by the oodles, dedication and determination but if you haven’t got luck you’re pretty much toast. On the other hand, you can average to zilch talent but if you have the lady on your side you have nothing to worry about. Perhaps my placing too much on mere chance stems from the industry I come from.

While luck plays a role in any field in life, its importance is exaggerated in mine. Every day I see talented people struggling away, unable to make a mark. On the other hand you have a music director (I shall refrain from using names), whose sole talent in life is creative stealing. *Gasp* you guessed???!!! And here I was soooo careful.

Of course what I’m saying could be pure baloney. As one erstwhile leading tennis player, talking about the favourable percentage of close net and line calls that regularly went his way, said, “The harder I practice the luckier I get.” Perhaps in sport. I mean, that is one area you need to have some skill. And hone it. You just can’t wake up one day and bend it like Beckham. *Sorry* I couldn’t think of a more original one.

Elsewhere, I think, luck is a necessary and sufficient condition for success. So all you aspiring writers, singers, musicians, you too can get lucky. It’s really a question of practice. *You too can win* Do I sound sufficiently like Shiv Khera? God, where did that name come from? It’s been ages since we heard it! There was a time where he was everywhere. And then he just disappeared. Guess who the lady deserted.

BTW, what do you think of the title of this post? I dithered between luck by chance and oye luck luck oye and chose the latter. I am a Dilliwali at heart. What to do, I’m like this only.

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Mumbai, murder, madness, mayhem . . .and Gaitonde!

I apologise if it appears I’m blowing my own trumpet (which I am), but when you read this, you’ll understand why. I came across this recently and it really made my day:

“This book was marketed as Indian chicklit, part of a new wave in Indian publishing. Well it does have a spunky, 20-something female as the lead character; but the reason I liked it (and no I’m not trying to be snotty about chicklit…for the record, I LOVE chicklit) was because it’s an intricate murder mystery too.

For Indian readers who grew up reading Agatha Christie and felt sorry for themselves because they believed they could never relish that pleasure in an Indian form…well…there’s hope. Now, now… Jain is no Christie. Judging from her glam author photo and bio, she might even take offence at being compared to a badly dressed tame dame, no matter how successful. But she sure possesses a talent for dragging you, protestingly at first, through a hundred twists and turns to finally catch the killer.

There are a bunch of interesting suspects who are all linked to each other and to the victim in rather complex ways. Jain keeps all these connections, cross-connections, and revelations moving along smoothly as she weaves her way to the climax. And she does all this without subverting any of your cherished beliefs such as: a) highly-placed murderers never get caught in India b) Mumbai traffic is BAD c)and Indian policemen are lazy and inefficient. They might be lazy and inefficient but they can solve murders when they want to…as long as they have a nutty TV writer and her hot squeeze of a serious author to help them.

Policeman Gaitonde is my favourite character in the book…I find myself saying ‘actuities’ and ‘hau’ every now and then…try it…your tongue twists interestedly around them…in a way it never will around ‘activities’ and ‘have’. Some of the characters are rather cliched but they help to build the atmosphere. I’m convinced it will be made into a movie soon…I had the feeling I was not reading a book so much as watching a fun thriller–a blend of Ram Gopal Varma and the Rajat Kapoor/Vinay Pathak stable.”

Read the original review here.

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Boredom can drive you to this

I was watching Spelling Champs on ESPN yesterday. As I was watching the Indian version of the Spelling Bee, one thing occurred to me. Actually two things. One, and that of philosophical, perhaps even ontogenetic  importance, just how bored does one have to be to watch that?

Yesterday was one of my busiest days and yet I managed to finished everything and still catch Spelling Champs. Contrast that with days when I only have to buy potatoes before the cook comes in and yet, I manage to mess that up. Has to be some sort of Murphy’s Law of Useless Pursuits or something.

The other thing that occurred to me was, boy, those kids are bright! Cochleae, Gingivitis, Acciaccatura, no matter what you throw at them, they get it right. And I need my computer to spell occasion and convenient! I used to be good at spelling but Word has made me lazy. Besides, I figure, who uses words like derailleur (French origin: mechanism for changing gears) and piccalilli (A kind of pickle)?

The only mistakes the kids made were because of poor pronunciation by the host, Rajat Kapoor. Man, they need a better host than him. The poor kids had to periodically keep looking at the ‘experts’ for verification. The experts being some gora named Andrew and one BBCD (as in the European counterpart of ABCD), Rana.

However, those kids need some serious phonetics lessons. All of them pronounced H as etch. All of them! The only exceptions being two south Indian kids who pronounced it as hetch. People, it is pronounced aitch.

On an aside, I found this joke and it’s hilarious. Like, seriously funny.

Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline;

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are depressed, it doesn’t matter which number you press. No one will answer.
If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be aware that the thing you are holding on the side of your head is alive and about to bite off your ear.

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Golden Rules for Plagiarising

For an author I get a woefully little amount of reading done. And that’s because I’m usually in the middle of writing a book. And when I’m writing I don’t read (not fiction anyway) for fear of getting influenced.

That means that the only time I get for reading is when I’m in-between novels or plotting one. Which happens to be now. Accordingly, I went out day before yesterday and picked up 5000 bucks worth of books. So now I’ve got 21 titles to be read within a month, preferably less. I’m proud to declare that I made a good start yesterday and finished 2 whole novels!

Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer – the dude is good! A little formulaic, but he’s the only one you can get you to compulsively turn the page on merely the promise of an intriguing question being asked by an unlikely figure at a public lecture – and the other one by Mary Higgins Clark. I hope to finish an Amy Tan today (I’ve never read her before) and a Wilbur Smith (or did I get a Ken Follett?).

When you read contemporary works from your genre, you always run the risk of getting influenced or, as Bollywood types love to say, ‘inspired.’ But that doesn’t mean that one stops reading altogether. What one can do, however, is following:

1. Try to plagiarise ideas instead of whole chunks of passages (remember how Opal Mehta got kissed…by wazzername?).

2. On the other hand, after the scandal broke, Opal got publicity like you woulnd’t believe. She actually ended up selling more. You can’t pay for that kind of publicity. Moreover, stealing just the idea cannot guarantee immunity. Just look at Stephanie Meyer. So to hell with that idea.

3. Carefully weigh the pros and cons of stealing. How much do I make in royalties vis-a-vis how much do I fork out in settling the claim? If the scales tilt in favour of royalties, go for it.

4. While you’re at it, try and steal it from bestsellers to make it easier to spot instances of plagiarism.

5. If you do happen to be a poor sod and lift from an unknown and obscure book, get a friend to blow the whistle on you.

6. If however, you must steal but the ensuing lawsuit could leave you shirtless, do it smartly and from many sources. As they say, steal from one place, it’s plagiarism, steal from many, it’s research.

7. If you must steal and rather obviously, go one up on potentially litigious authors and give them credit. You only have to look at the many ‘management’ and ‘self-help’ books on the shelves to know that this works.

8. Lastly, for God’s sake, don’t get caught with your hand in the cookie jar! Remember, it’s only stealing if you get caught.

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