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A slice of the pie
WHAT DO you call it when somebody trained not in creative writing but management studies writes a first novel, and without any hassles, gets the manuscript accepted by a renowned publisher like Penguin? A piece of cake? Perhaps. Anyway, that's what non-resident Indian first-time author Swati Kaushal named hers, though presumably not for those reasons. "Piece of Cake" is the story of a young, successful, boisterous corporate professional working in a food company where her brief is to, well, sell the company's cakes, making them the fastest moving things on supermarket shelves and seedy roadside canteen counters.
Swati's heroine is not your conventional Hindi film beauty, nor is she the archetypal black-suited, briefcase-carrying, glossy-lipstick adorned Woman Professional of the Year type. Her feet are a healthy few sizes bigger than the average Indian girl's, her earlobes - or the lack of them - are her nemesis, and she is touching 30 with no husband, past, present or prospective, in sight.
Many writers emphasise that a first novel is bound to be autobiographical. But meet Swati, and if you had any idea you were going to see her protagonist Minal in the flesh, the notion is quickly swept away. Slim, smiling, confident, with carefully groomed hair and an infectious smile. She didn't model Minal's physical attributes on herself, laughs the author. But the visual effect is not all that autobiographical influences are about. Swati too has worked in advertising and knows the competitive world of selling well, having worked in Nestle India and subsequently Nokia, after qualifying from the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. She has experience in advertising and copywriting too, she says, so she knows what Minal is all about.
About the workplace
So what decided her on shifting from cushy management jobs to the unpredictable world of fiction writing? "I wanted to spend time with my son - now he's seven-and-a-half. When you're a mom and working and running a home, and everything, there's no time. So I quit my job at Nokia when my son was four. I wanted to take a vacation and read and relax. That's when I read `Brigitte Jones' Diary' and I thought, okay, how about writing about the workplace."
Her experiences at the office - "there are people you fight with, you're on their back to get things done, the deadlines, everything, you miss them" - gave her all she needed to work on. Another striking facet of Minal's character is her strong ethical streak, with a great grandfather who played a leading role in the Independence movement.
Swati, now settled in Minneapolis in the U.S., says this aspect is significant. "For me it was important to bring out that you can have ethics and it works," she says, emphasising her own lack of cynicism, which she finds a vital ingredient in a healthy life.
Settling in the U.S. for this charmingly frank young woman was a learning experience. "The first year was really hard. I had certain attitudes. Suddenly you realise that we're not really that different." She mentions ideas like, Indians are smart, Americans less so. "Actually they are also smart, but if they don't know something they will ask, and then they'll be up on it! I feel I cannot generalise."
Next in her plans is a novel about two women, "about a single parent, about a mother and daughter, but I am trying to keep it fun."
As for fun, feels Swati, who counts John Steinbeck, Penelope Fitzgerald and others among her favourite writers, "Writing is so much fun. I'm going to stay with it."
Right, and a piece of cake to you too!
ANJANA RAJAN
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
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Visakhapatnam
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