Married But Available in Best Seller Lists

Rashmi Bansal was the first one to write about my first novel Mediocre But Arrogant. The article called A Novel Pastime appeared in the June 2005 issue of BusinessWorld magazine (read the article here) and of course it appeared on Rashmi's blog at the same time. She had profiled this new author called Chetan Bhagat who had stirred up major interest with his first novel called Five Point Someone. The article had talked about MBAs moonlighting as novelists. Swati Kaushal had written Piece of Cake categorized as chick lit and Deeptha Khanna's teen lit called The Year I Turned 16.Three years later Rashmi's blog Youthcurry was the first to say, "Incidentally I saw 'Married but Available' at no 5 among best selling fiction books at Crossword in Bandra. Lagta hai acchi bik rahi hai! " and sent me this photo. Rashmi found stuff about layoffs in Married But Available to be interesting.  "The book also touches upon what is a red hot issue today - layoffs for workers. Whether in a factory or in a white collar office the concerns remain the same. It is NEVER easy. The way Abbey deals with it he manages a win-win situation." Her overall take - "Overall, I think this is a good book for anyone who:* is a young manager and esp those planning a career in HR. Context may change but issues remain the same.* enjoys reading yuppie-lit ie books about People Like Us.* looking for a quick breezy read - nothing too deep."Gautam Ghosh sent me photo of the book being at No 4 on the Crossword at City Select Mall, Saket, New Delhi.

Another list by the Indo Asian News Service put the book among the top ten fiction books, but at No 8. Hey but look at the company!

1. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

2. The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam

3. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

4. Silks by Dick Francis and Felix Francis

5. Divine Justice by David Baldacci6. The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory

7. The Diary Of A Social Butterfly by Moni Mohsin

8. Married But Available by Abhijit Bhaduri

9. A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carre

10. The Private Patient by P.D. James

Sometimes trawling through the web can throw up interesting sightings. Here is what a reader from sent me as a link. The popular Radio Station in the UAE is Hit 96.7. The leading Malayalam FM station in the UAE, Hit 96.7 was launched in 2004 to cater to the largest expatriate community in the Gulf – the Malayalees. Their book review section features Married But Available. They give it a "A strong recommendation".  I suspect they saw that I too was Radio Jockey in my previous life and hence the RJ Brotherhood must have made them go soft on me :). Hey I am not complaining! Whatever works.