Literary Novels
The Ashram
A protesting freedom fighter is hit on his head by an English policeman. The injuries caused turn him mentally unstable, and the price is to be paid by his son, who has to bear an invalid father who is also an object of mirth and ridicule for other children. His entire childhood is spent protecting his father, fighting other children which would ultimately alienate him from the society.
When he grows up, he is acutely aware of the trauma caused by hundreds of years of foreign rule, subjugation, and colonialism. Having committed a sin of not saving a boy’s life while he could, he moves to an ashram for the healing of his guilty soul. As he surveys his own soul and the pleasant surroundings, he falls in love with an English woman and an Indian fisherman’s widow at the same time. The trauma of colonialism and his hidden racial feelings would make the relationship between him and the English woman complicated and turbulent, and at the end of the day, his heart would have to look for peace in the other woman, the fisherman’s widow.
Major theme: historical trauma caused by hundreds of years of foreign rule, subjugation, and colonialism
World Under Lockdown
Nimish and Dr. Ramakrishna live on different floors of a two-story house. As the COVID-19 starts spreading, and India enters its first lockdown, Nimish falls prey to severe depression observing the suffering, chaos and uncertainty caused by the pandemic all over the world, while Dr. Ramakrishna, an eighty-two-year-old retired doctor, becomes the victim of an intense paranoia, and adopts extraordinary measures to protect himself from the virus. Meanwhile their housemaid Maniamma resigns to her fate when she experiences the symptoms of the disease, believing God wants her to die and she should leave the world willfully as per his wish.
World Under Lockdown is a novel about hope and humanity, and mankind’s collective struggle against a global pandemic.
Major theme: life in the times of a global pandemic
Syndrome
A promiscuous prince of an erstwhile Princely State in hiding,
A fragile and unassured old man trying to find manhood and dignity,
A fat woman on a quest to rediscover the lost love of her husband,
and a beauty mistreated by her destiny trying to find a dignified way to survive….
These four characters, their lives entwined, enter a world created by their unquenched desires and unshaped identities.
Syndrome is a novel about quest for identity, dignity and belongingness. It’s a novel about unfulfilled desires and the limits we humans cross to satisfy them. Shifting between present and past, it also tries to explain how our history has shaped us.
Major themes: Quest for identity, How history has shaped us
My Friend Raman
The narrator, a pandit ji in Jaipur, hailed in his locality as a saint, narrates about his turbulent relationship with his only friend, who in his later years grew disillusioned and faithless. The rupture in his life, caused by a traumatic past, is so great that he can’t even face his own daughter who comes to meet him after fifteen years of alienation, all the way from London where she lives with her foster parents. The father-daughter try to work it out between themselves, as the three embark on a touristy journey through the colorful Rajasthan.
When the daughter discovers that her father is a bisexual, who never truly loved her mother but loved and still loves his friend instead (the pandit ji, the narrator), things are not going to be the same ever again.
Major theme: Complicated human relationships
One Day of Madness
Tragic story of a young man who believes he has solutions to all the problems of the world, and he alone can save it from a deadly downward spiral.
Leslie, an unassuming and socially anxious young man, becomes deeply obsessed with the problems of the world. Gradually, he starts believing that the world is in danger, and he alone can save it from the numerous challenges it is facing now: global warming, militarist governments, nuclear threat, deep divisions among nations, marginalization of a large populace, etc.
Soon the prominent world leaders are chasing him, as they know only he has the vision required to save the world. He has to run away from them, since he knows it’s all happening in his own mind, he is simply hallucinating because of a budding schizophrenia. As he wanders in the streets of the city, the ghosts of his own life take control of him. A girl who betrayed him in love, a boss who kicked him out of his job without a reason. Scores are to be settled.
Ultimately, as reality frequently blends with fiction, it becomes a day of unconceivable chaos and madness – a day this troubled young man will never be able to get rid of.
Major themes: Contemporary world and its challenges, How news and media can manipulate an individual’s psyche
Father Figure
The novel presents a panoramic view of India, tracing its rich history and conflicts through the story of Rupa (a beautiful young girl, a housemaid) and her blind brother Nitya, who were kidnapped at a young age by a decrepit book-seller and brought up with care and diligence. Seventeen years after the kidnapping, the kidnapper succumbs to the moral crisis caused by his attraction for the pretty girl, whom he has raised as a daughter, and decides to introduce them to their biological father, who is a Muslim. (Whereas they have been raised as Hindus.) The real father turns out to be a demented old man of seventy, bitter in temperament and paranoid about the world. Rest of the novel explores the siblings’ journey towards finding settlement with their new surroundings, a filthy locality of a chaotic city, and their own embittered father.
The novel brings scores of Indian characters, who define the tragedies and joys of our nation and her billion inhabitants.
Major themes: a panorama of India, human relationships
Young Adult and Adult
My Girlfriend Went to Mars
My Girlfriend Went to Mars is a futuristic romance novel, which takes place at a time when the colonization of Mars has started.
Trisha has only one dream in her life. She wants to visit Mars and work for the construction projects under progress there. That way, she wants to etch her name in history. Sam, on the other hand, is a simple boy whose only ambition is to have a body as hot as Bruce Lee’s.
They meet at the college and fall in love. Sam helps Trisha achieve her Mars dream, motivating and assisting her during the worst patch of her life. Trisha dumps him later before her journey to Mars, but Sam can’t push her out of his mind.
Their destinies unite them again, quite miraculously, but Sam will have to prove that he is a true and selfless lover who would do anything for the girl he loves.
Hundred Shades of Love
Nandini is a gorgeous, strongminded girl recently conned in love by an NRI guy. Three guys watch her cry on the roof of a skyscraper and fall in love with her at the same moment. Confronted with three lovers all at once, Nandini finally chooses one, breaking the heart of the other two. But that’s not the end. In fact here begins this dramatic story – a rollercoaster that passes through unexpected twists and turns, carrying with it all the heartbreak, deceit, remorse, suffocation, sacrifice, surrender, joy, freedom, and hundred other things possible in love.
Hundred Shades of Love takes its characters on a brutal journey of love, testing their hearts, wits and loyalty on the way.
Selfie Girl
One of the most beautiful girls of the world, and mysterious to the core, SELFIE GIRL is loved by many boys, but she loves no one. She loves herself, infatuated with herself as she is so gorgeous, and she keeps shooting selfies of herself from her cellphone.
Akash meets her during a beachside vacation and becomes infatuated with her. As they meet again and again, and SELFIE GIRL pours her heart out, Akash realizes that she has many unhealed wounds from her childhood. He tries to heal those wounds with his love and care, but will SELFIE GIRL give her heart to an ordinary boy like him? The novel borrows elements of fantasy such as ‘pirates’ and ‘the speaking wall’, and follows the very heart of modern-day teenagers.
No Life is Perfect
Tanya is beautiful and tall, and the topper of her class. She is adored by her parents, and envied by her neighbors. Her life is just perfect!
But is her life indeed perfect? No! Her parents control her life entirely, and all she has done in her life is study, study and study. She has not seen the world at all, not lived her life in any manner. She is a shy and unconfident girl with no fun side, and the blame goes to her ‘control freak’ parents.
Abhi’s life isn’t perfect either. He is considered a failure by his parents because he has failed in studies. After spending a wayward year with spoiled boys, he is struggling to get a grip on his life.
They both meet, and plan a trip to Goa. The trip would make Tanya a free and confident girl, and restore Abhi’s dignity and a desire to do something in life. They eventually fall in love, though their road to love would be filled with all sorts of thorns and hurdles.
Long Road to Hope Complex
Varun, a dashing young man and a successful entrepreneur, lives with a hidden trauma after the death of his wife, whom he had always ignored while she was alive. Suddenly, a girl from the past makes entry in his life. The girl, who used to silently love him when they used to study in school, tries to convince him that they are a perfect pair and hence made for each other. Varun is reluctant, torn in life and suspicious of the girl, but gets ready to explore the possibility of love between them as they embark on a 1000 km long walk to a place called Hope Complex.
The Marriage Trouble
When Akash decides to marry Anamika, he has no idea that he is going to enter a cave full of troubles. Anamika has married him just so that she can have somewhere to stay in Bengaluru, and has someone to care for her in dire circumstances. She has no love or concern for Akash; she merely wants to exploit him. It is gradually revealed that she is infatuated by some other man, a rich bad guy, who has manipulated her and made her addicted to drugs.
Akash doesn’t forsake Anamika, but decides to rescue her from the clutches of the manipulative man, the son of a wealthy and influential businessman. Akash will take a lot of trouble, including the risk on his own life, but he will not leave his wife to suffer and be controlled by the manipulating abuser. He is on a mission to save his wife’s life.
Diesel for My Soul
Abhilash is on a never-ending bike trip after his wife kicks him out of her life. Torn and heartbroken, he has no faith in love, and he is wandering throughout India with his bike, living a wayward life filled with drinking and prostitution.
As he progresses, he gets private messages on his cellphone from a gorgeous Russian girl. The Russian beauty claims that she loves him, even though Abhilash has never known or met her. He can’t be sure whether the Russian girl is a fake internet identity, or someone real. He partly considers her real, and starts falling in love with her. Ultimately, the story becomes twisted and ends with quite an unexpected turn.
5 Types of Love
Can a single person experience five different kinds of love?
Meet Shashank, a handsome young man who experienced five different kinds of love with five different girls at different times of his life. The types of love include innocent childhood love, lustful love, obsessive-possessive love, non-committal love, and pragmatic love. Through the various mixed experiences which ultimately resulted in heartbreak, Shashank finally finds his soulmate who showers him with deep and true love.
London Girl (Novella)
UK-returned Ashi hates everything about India, but decides to live with an Indian boy to explore her sexuality, about which she is always doubtful and worried. Losing her job due to her irritability and casualness, and falling prey to drunkenness and depression, she faces another mighty trouble coming her way – her flat-mate Sid falls head over heels in love with her, perfectly against her wish, and is prepared to move heaven and earth to conquer her defiant heart. What follows is a thrilling “cat & mouse chase” between an ultra-modern, cranky girl and a traditional, sincere boy. Will Ashi listen to the voice of Sid’s heart? Will she give Sid’s love a chance?