Monday, April 11, 2011

Times of India interview on Losing My Virginity and Other Dumb Ideas


I wrote when my newborn slept: Madhuri Banerjee

Madhuri Banerjee.jpg
I wrote when my newborn slept: Madhuri Banerjee
One day, a friend confessed to Madhuri Banerjee that she was 30 and still a virgin... that sparked off the author's first book.

A media professional, Madhuri runs a creative production house. She is currently working on commercial film scripts and her next book. In the past, she has assisted filmmakers such as Subhash Ghai, Kaizad Gustad and Rohan Sippy.

Was it easy to get a publisher for your book?
It was easy for me to get a publisher as a friend recommended that I send my entire manuscript to someone she knew in Penguin. She happened to love my book and passed it on to The Metro Reads editor who called me to discuss a contract. I had simultaneously sent it to Harper Collins but I never heard from them. I guess luck was on my side with Penguin!

What prompted the book?
A friend of mine accidentally told me one day that she was 30 and still a virgin. And it got me thinking. Here was this beautiful, intelligent, independent woman and she was still a virgin. That was the germ of the idea that made me do further research about love, relationships, virginity and women who are conflicted between traditions and morals on one side and with peer pressure and modernity on the other. I was 33 when I started writing the book. It took a few months to write it. I wrote mostly at night after the birth of my daughter who kept me awake most of the times.

In what category do you put your book? Who is the target reader?
My book is a fiction novel in the chick lit genre. My target readers are women from the ages of 18 – 45 and men of any age who want to understand women better! My inspirations are Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni whose book The Palace of Illusions kept me thinking for a long time, Elif Shafaq who wrote this wonderful novel called The Forty Rules of Love and of course Jaishree Misra, and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Are you writing any more books?
Yes, of course. My second book is on short quirky love stories and my third book is about the modern day Sita. I'm also planning a series on my protagonist Kaveri from Losing My Virginity and Other Dumb Ideas. The sequel is called Marriage and Other Dumb Ideas where she gets married and realizes it is not a bed of roses. And the third one being Tolerating Motherhood and Other Dumb Ideas where she has twins and tries to grapple with her work and being a mother in modern day society. The book has got a phenomenal response. People on my personal twitter account as well as on Kaveri Love Guru are raving about how I have dealt with issues that have not been discussed before and how steamy some of the scenes are! I've also got a lot of followers on Facebook. I'm planning to make it into an agony aunt page.

2 comments:

Grem Ivana said...

I hope to find it in Russia :)

Madhuri Banerjee said...

I hope so too. Otherwise check it on amazon or penguin books site. They will deliver.

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