Book picks similar to
Keep the Change by Nirupama Subramanian


chick-lit
fiction
indian-authors
indian-fiction

Those Pricey Thakur Girls


Anuja Chauhan - 2013
    Anjini, married but an incorrigible flirt; Binodini, very worried about her children's hissa in the family property; Chandrakanta, who eloped with a foreigner on the eve of her wedding; Eshwari, who is just a little too popular at Modern School, Barakhamba Road; and the Judge's favourite (though fathers shouldn't have favourites): the quietly fiery Debjani, champion of all the stray animals on Hailey Road, who reads the English news on DD and clashes constantly with crusading journalist Dylan Singh Shekhawat, he of shining professional credentials but tarnished personal reputation, crushingly dismissive of her state-sponsored propaganda, but always seeking her out with half-sarcastic, half-intrigued dark eyes. Spot-on funny and toe-curlingly sexy, Those Pricey Thakur Girls is rom-com specialist Anuja Chauhan writing at her sparkling best.

2 States: The Story of My Marriage


Chetan Bhagat - 2009
    Girl loves boy. They get married. In India, there are a few more steps: Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy. Girl's family has to love boy. Boy's family has to love girl. Girl's Family has to love Boy's Family. Boy's family has to love girl's family. Girl and Boy still love each other. They get married.Welcome to 2 States, a story about Krish and Ananya. They are from two different states of India, deeply in love and want to get married. Of course, their parents don't agrees. To convert their love story into a love marriage, the couple have a tough battle in front of them. For it is easy to fight and rebel, but it is much harder to convince. Will they make it?From the author of blockbusters Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Center and The 3 Mistakes of My Life, comes another witty tale about inter-community marriages in modern india.

The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad


Twinkle Khanna - 2016
    Sixty-eight-year-old Noni Appa finds herself drawn to a married man – ‘Why do people have to define relationships, underline each word till the paper gives way beneath,’ she wonders. Bablu Kewat becomes obsessed with sanitary napkins much to his family’s horror, and a young woman keeps checking the weather forecast as she meticulously plans each of her five weddings. Funny, observant and wise, this is storytelling at its most irresistible.

No Onions Nor Garlic


Srividya Natarajan - 2006
    Like libertines. To their hormonal despair, when Professor Ram stages his remake of A Midsummer Night's Dream at their college fest, he casts these four as fairies. The farce that follows gradually takes over the lives of the rest of the characters in this achingly funny novel about the pratfalls that accompany caste pride. On and off the campus of Chennai University, you will encounter onion-and-garlic-free TamBrahms who rewrite Shakespeare to uphold the Hindu order, smug NRIs who call the shots in matrimonials, visiting Canadians who are aghast at the plight of Dalits (pronounced 'daylights') and, at the apex of the whole tumbling structure, a bibulous builder who invokes the gods even as he defrauds his clients. Tailing the characters around this plot is an unseen but all-seeing spectator. You may never guess who that is, but will laugh all the way to the answer.

No Deadline for Love


Manasi Vaidya - 2011
    She is a perplexed botch, who never thinks before she talks. Megha realises that she fancies the creative course of action involved in making ad films, rather than her current job of creating marketing strategies for products. Her ornery boss is not electrified with the idea of brand managers turning into ad conceptualizing officers, though.Megha then meets the creative head of the company, Yudhistir Joshi. Yudi seems to bring out Megha’s atrocious side. Although he’s an exceptionally good looking man, Megha and Yudi publicly fight and argue. He hates her guts and she vice-versa. Yudi apprises her to quit from the creative team every single time, however, Megha, who’s finally in a blissful atmosphere, refuses to abandon her ecstatic ship. Little does she know that their friction will give way to sparks!Concurrently, ‘Vile’ Varun, Megha’s boss, puts her down in front of his bosses at every opportunity. He claims that she is inadequate for her profile.On the other hand, there is a crowd of eligible NRI bachelors on her list of problems, as Megha’s mother decides to put her up on the marriage market.No Deadline For Love is a first person narrative by the protagonist, Megha. The book reads almost like a journal entry, and is full of icy observations. The occasional hilarious quotes lighten up the reader’s mood, and the elementary pinch in the storyline, apart from her spontaneous description of the events, are the comical nicknames given to characters.

The Hindi-Bindi Club


Monica Pradhan - 2007
    They are the Hindi-Bindi Club, a nickname given by their American daughters to the mothers who left India to start anew—daughters now grown and facing struggles of their own.For Kiran, Preity, and Rani, adulthood bears the indelible stamp of their upbringing, from the ways they tweak their mothers’ cooking to suit their Western lifestyles to the ways they reject their mothers’ most fervent beliefs. Now, bearing the disappointments and successes of their chosen paths, these daughters are drawn inexorably home.Kiran, divorced, will seek a new beginning—this time requesting the aid of an ancient tradition she once dismissed. Preity will confront an old heartbreak—and a hidden shame. And Rani will face her demons as an artist and a wife. All will question whether they have the courage of the Hindi-Bindi Club, to hold on to their dreams—or to create new ones.An elegant tapestry of East and West, peppered with food and ceremony, wisdom and sensuality, this luminous novel breathes new life into timeless themes.

Last Man in Tower


Aravind Adiga - 2011
    Tower A is a relic from a co-operative housing society established in the 1950s. When a property developer offers to buy out the residents for eye-watering sums, the principled yet arrogant teacher is the only one to refuse the offer, determined not to surrender his sentimental attachment to his home and his right to live in it, in the name of greed. His neighbours gradually relinquish any similar qualms they might have and, in a typically blunt satirical premise take matters into their own hands, determined to seize their slice of the new Mumbai as it transforms from stinky slum to silvery skyscrapers at dizzying, almost gravity-defying speed.

A Good Indian Wife


Anne Cherian - 2008
    So when he agrees to return to India to visit his ailing grand­father, he is sure he’ll be able to resist his family’s pleas that he marry a “good” Indian girl. With a girlfriend and a promising career back in San Francisco, the last thing Neel needs is an arranged marriage.Leila is a thirty-year-old teacher in Neel’s family’s village who has watched too many prospective husbands come and go to think her newest suitor will be any different. She is well past prime marrying age; her family has no money for a dowry; and then there’s the matter of an old friendship with a Muslim boy named Janni.Neel and Leila struggle to reconcile their own desires with the expectations of others in this riveting story of two people, two countries, and two ways of life that may be more compatible than they seem.

Life is What You Make It: A Story of Love, Hope and How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny


Preeti Shenoy - 2011
    Pretty and intelligent, Ankita has everything she wants: friends, boys in hot pursuit, and admission into a premier management school for her MBA. But six months later, she finds herself a patient in a mental health hospital. How did she get here and will she ever get back her life again? Somehow, everything that made up her world has been taken away - and now she must fight like she has never had to, to recover her rightful lot. A gripping story of the pains of growing up, the strength afforded by faith and the indestructibility of the spirit, here is an inspiring story for modern readers.

Gently Falls The Bakula


Sudha Murty - 2008
    . . Holding a bakula flower in his palm, he was wondering why he was fascinated by this tiny flower, that was neither as beautiful as a rose nor had the fragrance of a jasmine or a champaka. And yet, it was very special to him. It held an inexplicable attraction for him.’ Shrimati and Shrikant are neighbours and star students of their school in the small north Karnataka town of Hubli. It leaves no one in surprise when they come first and second respectively in the final Board exams. Soon Shrikant discovers he is strangely attracted to Shrimati, a plain-looking yet charming person, who always does better than him in the exams. Shrimati too falls in love with the amiable and handsome Shrikant and the two get married. Shrikant joins an IT company and starts rapidly climbing the corporate ladder. He works relentlessly and reaches the pinnacle of his industry, while Shrimati abandons her academic aspirations and becomes his uncomplaining shadow, silently fulfilling her duties as a corporate leader’s wife. But one day, while talking to an old professor, she starts examining what she has done with her life and realizes it is dismally empty . . . Gently Falls the Bakula is the story of a marriage that loses its way as ambition and self-interest take their toll. Written nearly three decades ago, Sudha Murty’s first novel remains startlingly relevant in its scrutiny of modern values and work ethics.

If God Was a Banker


Ravi Subramanian - 2007
    Sundeep is ambitious and selfish, which leads him to achieve his goals through unscrupulous means. Swami is the exact opposite as he sticks to his morals and ethics to ensure success in his career. Swami's ideal and ethics keeps him behind Sundeep in terms of performance at the New York International Bank where they both work. Sundeep's rapid rise up the corporate ladder and his popularity with colleagues disguises his real motives and cunning mind. The story also has a main character, who is a friend and counsellor to both of them and he has his own philosophy which is based on his experience and is genuine. He always taught what he deemed right. Inspite of all the facts, the temptation of untold riches was too strong for Sundeep and he continued on his quest for more ill-gotten financial gain. All through the novel, the backdrop is the corporate bank environment, which is so polluted that the characters are portrayed as people who are ready to deviate from the righteous path at the drop of a hat. Women throw themselves at their bosses to advance their position. If God Was A Banker was published in 2007 and it won the Indiaplaza Golden Quill Book Award. The book has sold more than 260,000 books and has been a national bestseller.

The Last Song of Dusk


Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi - 2004
    But when their firstborn son dies in a terrible accident, tragedy transforms their marriage into a bleak landscape. As the pair starts fresh in a heartbroken old villa by the sea, they are joined by Nandini, a dazzling and devious artist with a trace of leopard blood in her veins. While Nandini flamboyantly takes on Bombay’s art scene, the couple attempts to mend their marriage, eventually discovering that real love, mercurial and many-hued, is given and received in silence. Sensuous and electric, achingly moving and wickedly funny, The Last Song of Dusk is a tale of fate that will haunt your heart like an old and beloved song.“A cornucopia of life at full tilt and high color . . . Shanghvi–who’s been compared to Arundhati Roy, Zadie Smith, and Vikram Seth–combines ribald humor with prose poetry.”–Sunday Oregonian“Few first novelists achieve such perfection, such control, in their performance.”–India Today“A gorgeous novel . . . written with a youthful twinkling eye.”–Los Angeles Times Book Review“Lush, witty . . . sassy prose . . . moves like a carnival ride.”–San Francisco Chronicle

Sushi for Beginners


Marian Keyes - 2000
    The only saving grace is that her friends aren't there to witness her downward spiral. Might her new boss, the disheveled and moody Jack Devine, save her from a fate worse than hell?Ashling KennedyAshling, Colleen's assistant editor, is an award-winning worrier, increasingly aware that something fundamental is missing from her life -- apart from a boyfriend and a waistline.Clodagh "Princess" KellyAshling's best friend, Clodagh, lives the domestic dream in a suburban castle. So why, lately, has she had the recurring urge to kiss a frog -- or sleep with a frog, if truth be told? As these three women search for love, success, and happiness, they will discover that if you let things simmer under the surface for too long, sooner or later they'll boil over.

Em and The Big Hoom


Jerry Pinto - 2012
    Between Em, the mother, driven frequently to hospital after her failed suicide attempts, and The Big Hoom, the father, trying to hold things together as best he could, they tried to be a family.

Serious Men


Manu Joseph - 2010
    Ayyan Mani, one of the thousands of dalit (untouchable caste) men trapped in Mumbai’s slums, works in the Institute of Theory and Research as the lowly assistant to the director, a brilliant self-assured astronomer. Ever wily and ambitious, Ayyan weaves two plots, one involving his knowledge of an illicit romance between his married boss and the institute’s first female researcher, and another concerning his young son and his soap-opera-addicted wife. Ayyan quickly finds his deceptions growing intertwined, even as the Brahmin scientists wage war over the question of aliens in outer space. In his debut novel, Manu Joseph expertly picks apart the dynamics of this complex world, offering humorous takes on proselytizing nuns and chronicling the vanquished director serving as guru to his former colleagues. This is at once a moving portrait of love and its strange workings and a hilarious portrayal of men’s runaway egos and ambitions. .