Married But Available and The Hindu

This year I had received a Valentine's Day gift. Only I did not know I had got a gift. My second novel Married But Available had hit the bestsellers list of The Hindu newspaper - a leading daily newspaper in English in India. According to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2008 The Hindu is the third most-widely read English newspaper in India (after Times of India and Hindustan Times) with a readership of 5.2 million. I have often wondered if commercial fiction and literary fiction should share a common bestseller list. Is that fair? Then again, can bestseller lists be made for different genres? Probably not. If so, we are back to where we started - lists are made across genres. So here are the bestsellers in fiction from the Hindu newspaper's Vishakhapatnam edition dated 14 Feb 2009 (need I add that I love the people of Vizag for their great literary choice ;)... see proof below. Bestsellers : Fiction

1. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer – Atom Rs. 299

2. Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup – Black Swan Rs. 2683. The Associate by John Grisham – Arrow Rs. 2294. Married but Available by Abhijit Bhaduri – Harper Rs. 1955. The Diary Of A Social Butterfly by Moni Mohsin – Random House Rs. 1956. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin- Random House Rs. 3957. The Murder Exchange by Simon Kernick – Corgi Rs. 2628. Amazing Grace by Danielle Steel - Corgi Rs. 2299. Lady Killer by Lisa Scottoline – Harper Rs. 28210. Opium Clerk by Kunal Basu – HarperCollins India Rs. 295The Hindu reviewed my novel Married But Available in todays literary supplement. I get a little worried about the book being featured in a literary review. I think there is a thin dividing line between literary fiction and commercial fiction. I believe Married But Available and the first novel Mediocre But Arrogant are both mass market fiction with no literary pretensions or capabilities. Here is the review by Sheila Kumar in The Hindu newspaper of 4th Oct 2009:

"Abhijit Bhaduri follows up his first novel Mediocre But Arrogant with this ‘MBA’ and warns that another MBA (Middle-Aged But Active) may yet be in the offing. Chetan Bhagat opened some kind of floodgates and this genre (IIT lit? MBA lit?) is what the waters are bringing in.Plain language

Bhaduri gets off to a sluggish, even disjointed start, then gets into his groove gradually. His groove is his book’s groove, of course, and it’s a story of a management grad, his wine, women, song and career, not necessarily in that order. Bhaduri uses plain, unvarnished, unpretentious if unstylised language, communicating straight to the reader and infuses his tale with a strong autobiographical tone. While the book, the story, could have done with some amount of literary flourish, this, too, is literature, as the aforementioned Chetan B has shown us.

And so, Bhaduri’s hero, Abbey passes out of IIM, Jamshedpur, gets into Balwanpur Industries, works at the township, chafes at the fishbowl existence he has to live there out of necessity, marries, gets estranged from, romances a woman or two, and slowly climbs up the corporate ladder. There is no discernible line of wit in the book; at best it is a collection of puerile jokes; the IIM gang comprises the usual suspects; the career climb is predictable, the women all coalesce into one another, come and go without leaving much impact. So what is the leavening factor in this ‘MBA’, a tenuous title at best? It’s lessons learned on the job which Abbey/Bhaduri imparts in a chatty tone that loses no relevance in the telling.Human Resource/Human Capital Practice/Personnel Management, whatever the term du jour is, it’s a fast moving track, creative and exciting, a track where you think as you run. To that extent, Bhaduri’s case histories with their solutions, make for interesting reading. The way Abbey handles the enforced VRS scheme initiated by the MNC that takes over Balwanpur Industries, is both informative and entertaining.Abrupt end

And then, at the end of the book, Bhaduri seems to revert to type… he ends as he begins, i.e., with a jerky conclusion, a needless death and an abrupt dropping of curtain. Who knows, maybe he’ll rectify this in his third MBA. Stranger things have been known to happen."

View a hi-resolution image of the cover of Married But Available designed by Shuka Jain