Contemporary Romance in Indian Fiction

Recently I was invited by SheThePeopleTV to participate in a panel discussion on Contemporary Romance along with other authors at the Women Writers Fest. It was an interesting session and threw up some fascinating insights into how authors (and editors) approach the topic of romantic love in fiction writing.

Are darker themes replacing feel good romance? This was one of the issues that was debated.

Real life love stories often have a gritty edge to them. We read about women being stalked, being killed by jealous lovers. In the age of instant gratification and Tinder-dating, where does that leave romance and more importantly fictional romance? Is lust more relevant than love to readers?

The concept of romance has always been shaped by mainstream commercial movies and the classics. Romeo and Juliet is the ultimate love story and it ended in tragedy! But can it be classified as romance? Love and romance, though often used interchangeably, they are actually not one and the same thing. Romance is what happens when a couple is sexually attracted to each other; it's the dating game, the push and pull of emotions, the surge of oxytocin. In 2012, researchers actually found high levels of oxytocin (often called the love hormone) in people who were in the first stages of romantic involvement.

Dating however is not an end in itself. Biologically, we are hard wired to find the perfect mate. Someone with whom we have that special bonding and without whom our lives would not be 'complete'. Call it what you will...but to me it sounds like Love. The subtext of it all is to find a Happily Ever After (HEA). And for that reason alone, HEA will never go out of fashion in contemporary fiction!

What are your thoughts on the issue? Please do share....

Facing my fear - one Pitch at a time

Pitching makes me freeze up. In fact, the very thought of it makes me wanna run away. For a screenwriter that's simply bad news. Because no matter what, if you want to get your stories out of your computer and hit the big screens, then you need to get comfortable with selling your story to potential producers and studios. And the first step in that journey is pitching. My fear of pitching has prodded me to find different ways of overcoming the hurdle. So, for a few years I tried to work with agents in the hope that they would read my book and be able to handle the job of pitching. But soon I realized that agents were not into reading. So, I was just another name in their long list of clients. How that helps them grow their business is a different story, and one that I will perhaps share at a later point when I get around to solving that mystery! But the turning point (life does imitate screenplays!) came when I was called to pitch my book to a prominent OTT channel. This was...

Basu Chatterji's "Balcony Class" Films

Basu Chatterji's Rajnigandha was like a breath of fresh air in the 1970s film universe of Bombay. At a time when the Angry Young Man was beginning to dominate celluloid screens, Amol Palekar was as un-hero-like as you could get. He was the Common Man who traveled in buses, did not have hero-like mannerisms and did not breathe fire and brimstone at his opponents. Basu Chatterji's Middle of the Road Cinema burst on to the scene and surprised the movie-going audience with its everyday situations and storylines that had an undercurrent of humour. Chatterji catered to an audience that he liked to call the "Balcony Class". Anirudha Bhattacharjee, author of Basu Chatterji and Middle-of-the-Road Cinema writes an entertaining and heartwarming account of the life and work of Basu Chatterji, one of the most under-rated directors of Indian cinema. Recall of Chatterji's brand of feel-good, slice-of-life movies is perhaps highest for his Rajnigandha, Chotisi Baat, Baaton Baa...

The biggest Challenge is to Pitch your Story to Producers

I have been writing books and screenplays for a while and it's been a process of learning and re-learning. In this interview with Namrata of Kitaab.org , I share my experiences with regard to writing scripts, pitching and book to screen adaptations. Team Kitaab: Your career began as a business journalist before you transitioned to fiction writing. How has your background in journalism influenced your approach to writing screenplays and adapting books for the screen? Adite Banerjie: Journalism has shaped my career as a writer – both in non-fiction and fiction. First of all, by working on news stories, specially those with a human interest angle, I got the opportunity to observe first hand various situations and events and how they impact lives. It provided me with invaluable experience of the entire spectrum of issues that shape, impact and change people’s lives. At some subconscious level this stayed with me. So, when I started writing fiction, my journalism experie...

Adventures of a Writer

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