“25-year-old Yale graduate gives up his career as a hot-shot investment banker on Wall Street to embark on a journey to India in search of his roots”. Sound familiar? Quite a road embarked on by writers, and filmmakers to say the least, this could well be another one of those ivy league ramblings or an IIT, IIM grad story. But just not quite yet. “Aren’t all IIM or IIT graduates writing now? It’s the cult of the overpaid, under-worked manager,” Karan Bajaj, author of “Keep off the grass”, says with a grin.
So how much farther along are we on his new book? The first time writer’s debut novel has already been creating quite a ruckus in the literary circles; it was a semi-Finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, 2007. Some readers have even touted the book as “The most eagerly anticipated book of the year”. That should somewhat be enough to send the nerves into a frenzy to which the author says, “It is both exciting and intimidating. Excited because hopefully this means that many folks will read my book other than having just your mother read it! intimidated because it could end up becoming the ‘Tashan’ of this year’s books — lots of pre-release hype; high on style; low on substance; result- box-office turkey.”
A management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Washington D.C., asked if the book is an amalgamation of all that he’s achieved, he says, “Hardly; lots more to be written on the epitaph!” The book is about a young American investment banker on Wall Street whose life is all set to follow a defined, predictable trajectory—a Harvard MBA, marriage, kids, luxurious European vacations, the works; instead he gets sucked into an India of drugs, prisons, surreal encounters, and crazy but believable characters. It is an unlikely journey of a reasonably ordinary man who finds himself thrust into some pretty extraordinary circumstances. “His Indian experiences — a dangerous drug addiction, meditating in the Himalayas, spending time in a prison cell etc. — seem particularly bizarre given the contrast with his protected and staid life before,” the author adds.
“Like any first time novelist, lots of my own funky experiences are in the book. Some of my confusions and fantasies of escape find their way in the protagonist.” At the risk of sounding like a Bollywood music director he says, “I have been inspired by a lot of writers- Jhumpa Lahiri, Chetan Bhagat, Gregory Roberts, Ruskin Bond, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Mohsin Hamid, even Winston Groom (Forrest Gump) but the end product is reasonably original. I probably wouldn’t waste a year or so of my life writing and editing the book if I didn’t have something new to say.”
Can we expect anything different when the protagonist ‘can’t keep off the grass’? “It’s all rooted in reality. India is a fascinating country and it’s not completely incredible for someone to end-up meeting Aghorees in Benares, meditate in the Himalayas, get stoned atop camels in Rajasthan, or be drawn to recreational. The protagonist’s journey is unusual, but not unbelievable,” he says, further adding, “I am writing commercial fiction with not too many pretensions for literary genius; so yes, I hope for some commercial success. To be honest, I would love for the book to be a best-seller, but I would also be really kicked if some of my philosophical/spiritual reflections (executed in a regular, non-pretentious and humorous style in the book) have a meaningful impact on just a few folks.”
Having spent a month at a monastery in Dharamshala, his philosophical inclination and experience find a unique albeit fictionalized place in the book. “Personally, it was a rich yet unfulfilling experience; kind of like dipping your toe in the ocean for a nano-second versus fully immersing yourself in the water. What I do recall most about those days though is a sense of absolute peace and contentment caused by the simple yet rigorously spiritual lifestyle in the place. Unfortunately, I was probably too materialistic to continue beyond a point and dived back into the rat race again,” the author says.
Karan Bajaj is all geared up with his book scheduled for release in India on May 30. Looks like it will be another course so often run well.
So how much farther along are we on his new book? The first time writer’s debut novel has already been creating quite a ruckus in the literary circles; it was a semi-Finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, 2007. Some readers have even touted the book as “The most eagerly anticipated book of the year”. That should somewhat be enough to send the nerves into a frenzy to which the author says, “It is both exciting and intimidating. Excited because hopefully this means that many folks will read my book other than having just your mother read it! intimidated because it could end up becoming the ‘Tashan’ of this year’s books — lots of pre-release hype; high on style; low on substance; result- box-office turkey.”
A management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Washington D.C., asked if the book is an amalgamation of all that he’s achieved, he says, “Hardly; lots more to be written on the epitaph!” The book is about a young American investment banker on Wall Street whose life is all set to follow a defined, predictable trajectory—a Harvard MBA, marriage, kids, luxurious European vacations, the works; instead he gets sucked into an India of drugs, prisons, surreal encounters, and crazy but believable characters. It is an unlikely journey of a reasonably ordinary man who finds himself thrust into some pretty extraordinary circumstances. “His Indian experiences — a dangerous drug addiction, meditating in the Himalayas, spending time in a prison cell etc. — seem particularly bizarre given the contrast with his protected and staid life before,” the author adds.
“Like any first time novelist, lots of my own funky experiences are in the book. Some of my confusions and fantasies of escape find their way in the protagonist.” At the risk of sounding like a Bollywood music director he says, “I have been inspired by a lot of writers- Jhumpa Lahiri, Chetan Bhagat, Gregory Roberts, Ruskin Bond, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Mohsin Hamid, even Winston Groom (Forrest Gump) but the end product is reasonably original. I probably wouldn’t waste a year or so of my life writing and editing the book if I didn’t have something new to say.”
Can we expect anything different when the protagonist ‘can’t keep off the grass’? “It’s all rooted in reality. India is a fascinating country and it’s not completely incredible for someone to end-up meeting Aghorees in Benares, meditate in the Himalayas, get stoned atop camels in Rajasthan, or be drawn to recreational. The protagonist’s journey is unusual, but not unbelievable,” he says, further adding, “I am writing commercial fiction with not too many pretensions for literary genius; so yes, I hope for some commercial success. To be honest, I would love for the book to be a best-seller, but I would also be really kicked if some of my philosophical/spiritual reflections (executed in a regular, non-pretentious and humorous style in the book) have a meaningful impact on just a few folks.”
Having spent a month at a monastery in Dharamshala, his philosophical inclination and experience find a unique albeit fictionalized place in the book. “Personally, it was a rich yet unfulfilling experience; kind of like dipping your toe in the ocean for a nano-second versus fully immersing yourself in the water. What I do recall most about those days though is a sense of absolute peace and contentment caused by the simple yet rigorously spiritual lifestyle in the place. Unfortunately, I was probably too materialistic to continue beyond a point and dived back into the rat race again,” the author says.
Karan Bajaj is all geared up with his book scheduled for release in India on May 30. Looks like it will be another course so often run well.
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