Turn right onto a different road
private
where every blade of grass is kept neat and tidy
archery target waits for vacationing archers
in the middle of a lawn designed for golf
no need to keep eyes down
no rocks out of place or divots to twist an ankle
a guard stands ready even at this sun rising time
perhaps to shoo me away or tell me it’s not safe to swim
we smile and say hello

Six chairs sit quietly
broken bits of glass
crumpled white table cloth
and a mangled sign are sleeping off their hangovers
from last nights wedding.
a couple out for a power walk
nod as they pass quickly in their brightly colored running shoes

At the end of this property is a low open wall
allowing anyone to pass through
I stand on the edge between two worlds
scanning what is in front and to the sides
a man wraps his lower body in a dhoti
and spits into the ocean
all things discarded
lay among palm fronds and cocoanut shells

I stand there for a moment
seeing the power walkers in the distance
listening to the surf crash on large wet black stones
no forwards
no backwards
no morning meditation
I came to write
sit in a chair under a red umbrella
allow the mosquitos to breakfast on my ankles
hope for a small breeze that doesn’t come

In my bag is the red notebook and a pen
open to a clean page
reach for my glasses that are not there
feel the ways resistance appears
listen to men singing
as they pull the days catch from the sea

Scared that you spend some 3-4 months writing only to see it rejected? It’s painful, I know. Go ahead and admit it. It’s only natural. I’ve been there before with screenplays. So what do you do? I’ll tell you what you can’t do. And that is stop writing.

One great way to make an impact with commissioning editors is to make your novel intriguing. Different. This applies to screenplays too. What can you come up with that will set your story apart from others? There are scores of campus novels detailing exploits of students in the IITs and IIMs. Male students.

Can you come up with a story of a female student? Can you give her another quirk which could be a source of conflict throughout the story? Maybe she is a lesbian! There conflict for you. As it is there are so few female students in these colleges. So you can imagine that when your protagonist goes looking for love, there are slim pickings.

When I was writing Kkrishnaa’s Konfessions, I went in for more than just a chick lit. I hadn’t done any great research on what was out there in terms of Indian chick lit. But I did know that there were scores of chick lit novels written by foreign authors available in the market place. So I instinctively went in for more and threw in a murder.

To be fair, even without the murder I would have got a contract. That’s because Kkrishnaa’s Konfessions is set in the intriguing world of television about which everyone is curious and knows little.

I have a feeling, Indian chick lit scene, indeed popular fiction, is getting saturated. Women (or men) planning to write chick lit and other popular fiction now would be better off coming up with imaginative and offbeat plots and whacky characters. It’s not enough to deal only with regulation weight/addiction/difficult boss/commitment-phobic boyfriend issues. Not unless you come up with a path breaking narrative, in which case that becomes the differentiator.

If you’re telling a straightforward story in a straightforward way, go for that something extra.