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A hippie story?
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Karan Bajaj’s novel is a humorous take on a pseudo quest for spirituality
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Photo: K. Murali Kumar
Write stuff Karan Bajaj
If we introduce Karan Bajaj as an alumnus of IIM Bangalore who has just released his first novella, Keep off the Grass, you’ll go, “Oh no, not another wannabe Chetan Bhagat with a campus novel”. Twenty nine-year-old Karan Bajaj, unlike his ilk, has written about a young American investment banker, Samrat. Like any other Wall Street employee, Samrat’s life would have followed a predictable course of high income, luxurious life and vacation for the family and the works. But Samrat feels a vacuum in his life and comes to India on a spiritual quest and even joins a B-School before getting entangled in the world of drugs and nearly ends up in prison. Sounds like a Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram-meets-Chetan Bhagat? Read on…
“I partly drew from my experiences and clubbed it with fiction. I grew up in India while my protagonist grew up in the US and comes to India. For an Indian novel, I think it’s a new approach to look at the pseudo quest for spirituality with humour,” says Karan, in Hyderabad to launch his book at Crossword. Now a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, Karan discovered the writer side to him when he was the editor of the campus magazine at IIM Bangalore.
Like Samrat, Karan too went on a quest for spirituality to Dharamshala and Benaras. “But I wasn’t committed. There was the intention but in 10-12 days I discovered I wasn’t cut out for it. That’s what I call pseudo spirituality — dabbling with it when you are not ready to get immersed in the system. On hind sight, it all seems funny.” A funny take on the quest has earned him positive reviews, from Ruskin Bond to blogs and the media. Keep off the Grass, published by Harper Collins India, is ready for its second print run (sold 10,000 copies in the first print run).
Karan loves to travel and will soon be backpacking to South America and Europe. “I’ve just been to Bhutan and Mongolia. Life in the US is predictable. South America is a lot like India. You can get off trains mid-way and hope to meet interesting people. I like the unpredictability.” His next novel, he says, will also mix philosophy with humour and draw from his travel. “I am not travelling to write a book but a book will emerge as a consequence,” he insists.
Point out that very few young writers have lived up to expectations after a successful first novel and he shrugs, “I am sure I will have a lot of new things to share in my second book, thanks to my travel.”
He feels young writers have never had it this good. “Publishers are so open to young writers and new ideas, which is good. But because of this, there’s also a lot of junk in the market. Writers need to remember that fiction should open a window into a new world for the reader. No one wants to read a catalogue of your experience.”
SANGEETHA DEVI DUNDOO
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