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Saturday 3 January 2015

Indian Campus Novels - Resurrection time is nigh



It all started with the blockbuster novel by Chetan Bhagat - "Five Point Someone: What Not to Do at IIT". The aforementioned book forged a new genre of books namely "Indian Campus Novels", and kick-started a frenzy of novel-writing among the literary universe in India. Debut authors sprung up from nowhere with their version of college campus-oriented books. Anything for You, Ma'am: An IITian's Love Story by Tushar Raheja, Above Average by Amitabha Bagchi, and Mediocre But Arrogant by Abhijit Bhaduri are popular, solely campus-oriented novels released thus far.

Despite having a love story as a backdrop, these three novels (including Five Point Someone) did focus on the academic life of the protagonists along with other challenges/adventures encountered by them in college life. However, in between, a new genre of campus novels originated. This genre of books used campus life as the backdrop, but the central theme invariably remained a love story. All events, adventures, and experiences encountered by the protagonists were woven around the selfsame love story. The Bollywood crazy Indian audience lapped up the love stories à la a child offered free ice-cream. Virtually every debut author started employing the selfsame, flawless technique and several of them progressed to become bestselling authors. Gradually, the original "Campus Novel" genre faded away; the genre initiated by Chetan Bhagat (who himself has progressed to Bollywood masala kind of scripts) needed resurgence. 

Withal, additional concerns had surfaced. Firstly, the campus love stories prevalent in the market were laced with substandard language, atrocious grammar, recurring Hindi shayaris, unending SMS conversations, vulgar words, and were devoid of literary content and lucid narration. Ergo, ardent and avid book readers started to banish such books and gave them 1-star reviews, lambasting them vehemently. Despite that some of these books still became bestsellers. Secondly, novels based on IIT/IIM/JNU and other high profile institutions had become commonplace. There was a need for a perspective of protagonists belonging to ordinary engineering colleges in India.

Perhaps, the time had come when the "Campus Novel" genre needed resurrection. And, we (me and my co-author Apoorv Wanikar) resolved to initiate the resurgence by penning a "Campus Novel",Friendship Love And Killer Escapades (FLAKE), based on adventures, infatuations, friendships, love, and academic challenges encountered by engineering students in a run-of-the-mill institution in Bangalore. Withal, we have tried our best to minimize grammatical errors, employ good language, and include some literary content. It is on the verge of release in June 2015. We sincerely hope you will appreciate our honest effort and FLAKE provides you with a few hours of light entertainment. Cheers! God bless all! The link for purchasing FLAKE is provided below:

http://www.amazon.in/Friendship-Love-Killer-Escapades-Pankaj/dp/8192877442/

Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/FLAKETheNovel

Twitter handle:
https://twitter.com/FLAKE_TheNovel / @FLAKE_TheNovel

Regards,
Pankaj Giri