Today @Behind the book we have Ms. Bhargavi
Balachandran the author of the newly released book The Crossover Year.
The book’s blurb says:
"Meet Sri Anuprabha, aka Anu, a
twenty-nine year-old banker who is terrified of entering her thirties. She
dreams of quitting her job at the bank, sporting yoga pants and traipsing
around the world. Her world turns upside down when things go awry and she is
faced with the prospect of spending her days watching Tamil serials. She comes
up with a five-point plan for reclaiming her life back before she hits the big
30. But things are never as simple as drawing up a flowchart in real life, are
they? Especially with a ghastly recession rearing its ugly head. Anu bumbles
through the corridors of domesticity and travels on a fun-filled roller coaster
ride in a bid to discover her passion in life. Along the way, she meets new
people, experiences crazy things and learns some hard lessons in marriage,
friendship, parenting and life."
This is the author’s second novel, the first one was a romance
novella called Seven Across that
came out in 2012 . Let’s get into a conversation with her to know more
about her and The Crossover Year.
Extending a warm welcome to Reviews and
Musings to you! It is a pleasure having you here and thank you so much for your
time.
Thank you so much for the warm welcome, Privy. I am super
excited about connecting with all of you and sharing more about the book.
1. The
Crossover Year – can you tell us more about it?
Its the story of 29-year old Anu , who is a banker and is intensely unhappy with her job. She quits work
and goes on a journey of self discovery. The book broaches several serious topics
like sexual harassment at work , parenting, work-life balance , passion in life
, marriage and friendship, but does so
in a light-hearted and funny (hopefully!)way.
2.
Having a
female protagonist, was it intentional or was there any specific reason you
wanted the tale to be narrated from a female POV?
It is the story of a woman’s journey, and considering the
fact that it is recounted in a light-hearted way, I had to do it from the POV
of a woman. So essentially I didn’t have a choice – the story chose to be told
from a woman’s POV. Also I find it easier to writer from a female POV and think
it would be a challenge for me write from a man’s perspective.
3.
What are
your views on the Indian Woman of today’s times – the juggler of home and
career?
Ah, that is the crux of this book! 9to 5 jobs are a thing
of the past and women no longer see work as something that will helps bring in
a few bucks. For many of us , our work gives us our biggest sense of identity.
Now, add a demanding family and children to the equation and we have the
perfect recipe for heartburns. All around me , I see examples of explemplary
achievements by Indian women and I cannot but think about the amount of hard
work that goes into being successful and balancing aspects of personal life at
the same time. Don’t we all want to be super-women , being able to juggle work
and home and tackle them both with equal panache? This is exactly Anu’s predicament!
4. Was it a
passion you always had, to become an author?
I remember when I was about ten years old , a friend and I
wrote some stories on a pink chart paper and tried selling them to unsuspecting
adults in our colony. Other than this , I don’t think I have really harbored a dream of becoming a
writer. I have always loved reading and writing, but it was always for my own
amusement. Then, blogging happened and I discovered that I had several stories
inside me waiting to be told.
I blog at Bedazzledeternally.blogspot.com and Hyphenatedsemicolons.blogspot.com.
However , after the arrival of my little one , I haven’t found much time to
blog.
5. This book is
more of a chicklit genres, a usual light reads which are scarce in current
Indian Publishing market. Didn’t it bother you?
Ha Ha! I think that the word chick-lit is the most abused
word in Indian publishing. I’d probably take offence if someone told me that
all chick-lits are brainless and full of fluff. According to me there are just
two categories of books – good ones and bad ones . I am not talking about fancy
words and flowery language when I say good books. To me a good book makes an
honest attempt at conveying whatever it wants to convey and is unpretentious. There
is space for the Arundhati Roys and Preeti Shenoys to peacefully co-exist here.
6.
Please share
your experiences about getting published with the aspiring authors. How has
been your journey till here?
Anu’s story was written almost five years back. Writing was
the easy part, what followed was a nightmare. I had sent the manuscript to four
publishers and three of them wrote back within three months saying they
couldn’t go ahead. One publisher was excited, but wanted me to edit the book to
almost half its size. By the time I edited it and got back to them , the
commissioning editor who had asked for the edit had resigned and Anu’s story
was orphaned again. In hindsight, I feel I should have spent a lot more time on the manuscript before
sending it out. When I was about to give up on the book and move on to the next
, I read an article about literary agents in India. I was intrigued and decided
to mail my manuscript to an agent. He promptly got back and told me that Anu’s
story had to be told and that if we reworked the manuscript a bit, publishers
would gladly take it up.I spent months re-writing it. However, despite re-working,
things didn’t really work out. We were all baffled and for almost a year there
was no news. Then out of the blue , the agent mailed me saying that he had found
a publisher. That was three years back. There were points when I was ready to
give up and move on, but somehow I think this book was fated to come out. It
was just a matter of time.
Our Indian publishing industry is at an exciting stage
where publishers are willing to look at unsolicited works and are on the
constant look-out for new voices. All
you need to do is keep writing and sending your stuff out to publishing
houses. Good luck !
7. What is that one good thing and one bad thing
about becoming an author?
Every author will tell you this that
seeing their book in print is almost like giving birth to a baby. It is
intense, has a lot of pain and toil attached to it ( the edits most definitely
are!). But all that doesn’t really matter when you hold the book in your
hands. It’s your baby; it’s a part of you. You have breathed life into
something that didn’t exist before and you have a book to show for all the long
hours you spent cloistered in your room toiling away. That’s the good part.
When you write a book (even if its a
work of fiction) , your thoughts and prejudices creep into it. Its almost like
you are carving a part of yourself and putting it the open for the whole world
to gawk at. It can be a little unsettling if one is not very sure of
oneself. But that’s how life is: where
bouquets fall, brick-bats will also exist. Also , unless you are a best-selling
author , there is no money in this pursuit. You do it because you want your
stories to be told , not because you want to become a millionaire. So if you
don’t have a backup job , things can be very frustrating. Some really good
writers fail to make a mark, while mediocre books manage to make it big. That’s
publishing for you.
8. If there is
one thing that you could change in the book what would it be?
Oh, lots of stuff. Every time I re-read it , I find ten
different things I want to change. I’ve realized that Anu’s life is written and
I need to move on now. She might be flawed in some ways , but there is nothing
much I can do about it and that gets me to stop obsessing. I have new Anuprabhas
to obsess about now :)
9. We would
love to know your future projects or any other books you might be working on
currently.
I have four manuscripts at different stages of completion. All
of them are of different genres and I have no clue which one would get
completed first.
1 Any message
for our readers and all those aspiring authors out there.
Just keep writing religiously- at least 300-400 words every
day. Writing is like any other skill – it just gets better with practice. Read
like there is no tomorrow – only that way you’ll know what works and what
doesn’t. Network with fellow writers and your potential readers, as publishers
don’t just want a book , but a pre-packaged author who can sell books for them.
Yeah , publishing is like any other business.
And lastly , don’t
ever give up, because if you don’t have faith in what you have written , how
are you going to get someone else to like it ? Good luck !
Thanks a bunch for giving me this opportunity to share my
thoughts, Privy. You’ve made me introspect about what really attracted me to
writing this book in the first place. Blogs like yours are a blessing for new
writers like me. Stay blessed!
A
huge thank you for sparing some of your precious time to be with here today, we
would like to wish you all the best for all your future endeavors.
P.S: Stay tuned for a review of this book here soon!