Ask Abhijit

Question : Are you Abbey? Is this story autobiographical?Answer : No I am not Abbey, though we share a few things in common. I grew up in the Railway Colony at SP Marg, New Delhi and went to the same college as Abbey. My birthday is on 16th November. So yes, the settings are the same as mine. MIJ, the B-School that the story is set in the city of Jamshedpur and I went to XLRI which is also set in Jamshedpur. It was much easier to write about a place I knew well than to set it in a fictitious place or a city I had limited knowledge of. The story is believable because I could write authentically about the life of someone in a Business School. So all in all, if you write about a place that you know well and set the story in a setting you are familiar with, there is an air of believability about it.Question : How long did you take to write this novel?Answer : I wrote the story over seven years. I was not obliged to complete it in any time frame and had no million dollar advance from a publisher to submit the manuscript before a deadline. So the writing pace was slow and unhurried. I worked on the story till I felt that it was complete and ready for someone else to read.Question : Who is your favorite character?Answer : It is rather difficult for me to choose from among my own characters. Each one has some endearing trait or the other. Rascal Rusty tends to be a favorite among many of the readers I notice. I like his wit and insight. I admire the way he has pulled himself up by his own bootstraps in the story. All the characters interact together to create the chemistry of the novel. If anyone were not there, the novel would be incomplete.Question : Who designed the cover of the book?Answer : I did. There was no money to pay for a separate jacket design artist. So I paid myself to do it. The collage of photographs and scribbles is fuzzy – quite like the way someone’s memory would be if you look back at an event set in 1982-84. It has the handwriting of the characters in the story. Ayesha’s note to Abbey saying, “You will always be special in my eyes. XXX Ayesha”, while Arunesh Nanda the guitarist writes, “See you at my concert”Question : Studying for an MBA is very popular at the moment, did you aim your book at a particular audience with this knowledge?Answer : I wrote the story the way it unfolded. I chose the B School setting because I went to one and also taught at one (XLRI) for five years. That gave me opportunities to talk to students and teachers over a seven year period and enabled me to look at what was common across batches and what was transient. I believe the readers of this book are not just B School students or aspirants, (though that is a sizeable chunk), anyone who has experienced life on a campus can relate to the story.Question : The title (very clever!), how did you choose this title? Anyother working titles?Answer : Thanks. The title came out of a line used by the protagonist. The phrase gives the reader a flavor of the story - that it is funny, irreverent etc. I did not have any other titles in mind.Question : It is true all the characters can be related to, are they based upon your college friends? To what extent?Answer : I tried to create characters based on some archetypes. All that make the story touch people across generations and somethings that evoke nostalgia in everyone - ie good times with friends.Question : Rusty (a favourite character of mine!), his ingenious solutions - are they your ideas or were the words of wisdom taken from elsewhere?Answer : I got an opportunity to live the lives of all the characters during the process of writing this novel. So while writing Rusty's lines I had to think like him. (He is my favourite too)Question : You say you had to treat the novel as a term paper in order to complete it - was the novel difficult to write? Why? It flows very well.Answer : Thanks for saying so. I wrote this over 7 years out of which I had a writer's block from 1999-2002. WhenI picked it up in 2002, I did not like what I had written before. So I had to start from scratch.Question : The classnotes are very clever and amusing, where did the idea to use them come from?Answer : Many of us like to doodle in class. Abbey is the kind of charcater who starts off in all earnestness and then meanders along. The doodles capture that and build aspects of Abbey's character eg his sense of humour etcQuestion : The pressure Sethu experiences (to the extent he burns his notes), is that pressure you experienced or based on someone you know?Answer : Doing an MBA is a demanding process. The pressure is especially compounded with the uncertainty of the Placement Season and of course peer pressure. That leads people to do desperate things. Sethu is no exception, despite being a topper. Or maybe because he was a topper and had additional pressure.Question : Would you agree college days are the best days of one's life?Answer : Without doubt. The days spent with friends. When life is really uncomplicated.Question : This is the first book in the trilogy - when are the next released? (I'm very eager!!)Answer : I am scribbling away at book 2. But I am a slow writer. So lets see how long it takes to mature.Question : The novel explores the journey into adulthood as well as the educational aspect of the business school. Did you plan to explore the emotional side of it as opposed to the day-to-day life in the business school or did it just occur with the writing process?Answer : The book moves at two levels - professional and emotional. The movement in to B School and Abbey's love life represent the two levels of his existence. I did want to talk about both aspects - hence the tagline "of love and life in a business school".