Into December - sales steady

Ending November on a high

Back to top gear in November

Sales are good - one year after publication

Sales are steady in November - one year on ...

Gilbert Jessop Mystery

One of the early novellas of the author - a cricket mystery named The Gilbert Jessop Mystery - is now being serialised by Zee India's cricketcountry.com

The novella can be accessed here

October wanes - sales on a high

Another touching mail from a reader

"In one word I would say that the book is 'fulfilling'. 

I loved the cannabis conferences, and the conversations between Sandeep and the doctor. The constant alliterations were a gem. It really is a welcome break from the usual crime thriller - page turner that one gets to read most often these days. There was an innate joy of just reading this one without even bothering to think about the end. 

Quoting the book itself, I would say it is a book that can be read on a train, and be remembered in the next journey too. 

Thanks for (producing) this gem"

As I say, mails like this make writing worthwhile.

Surge of Sales again

A Surge of Sales

In October - sales steady

A wonderful mail from a reader...

Mail from  a reader from California.


Just finished The Best Seller and the Big Apple. Great reads, great truths, especially loved dhop satori. As a former biotech consultant, I can certainly verify the observation, which I always thought of as execs blurring the boundary between hype and reality.

I started Aikido at age 40 with Robert Nadeau Sensei in Mountain View, CA. My knee went bad after three and a half years, but they were unforgettable ones. I've had spiritual teachers through the years (as a naive American mostly), but Nadeau Sensei, although a curious mixture of light and dark, taught me more about life than I've learned elsewhere. I'm 70 now, and the adventure of life continues to roll out.

In any event, thanks loads for sharing your great writing and trenchant insights. I'll be looking forward to future efforts.

Scroll Articles - Current Issue: Jeeves and the Booker Prize

Scroll Articles - Current Issue: Jeeves and the Booker Prize:

A complete Jeeves novella by Arunabha Sengupta with apologies to P.G. Wodehouse

This was published in the PG Wodehouse special issue of Scroll.

Cruising through September

Sales are decent as September rolls on

Blog of Simple Simon: Shakespeare speaks about Corporate Meetings

Blog of Simple Simon: Shakespeare speaks about Corporate Meetings:Simon throws insights about how the Swan of Avon documented the first ever meeting minutes in one of his most popular scenes.

Into September ... things look good

Mid August finds mid season form

July Ends with a Flourish

Blog of Simple Simon: Who Moved my Revolution?

Blog of Simple Simon: Who Moved my Revolution?: "(This piece also occurs in the Scroll online magazine. ) Simon van der Wiel of The Best Seller fame is livid at how corpocracy type of ignorance in political propaganda is endangering lives of others.

Into July with a Bang

Dr. Roy's Web Wisdom: Debugged - Swarms Caught in the Net

Dr. Roy's Web Wisdom: Debugged - Swarms Caught in the Net: How much does the modern phenomenon of Social Networking emulate or mimic the smart swarms of ants, termites and honeybees? And why cannot man use Social Networking to its fullest potential by following the trail of these swarms?

Scroll Articles - Current Issue: Is the Click Mightier than the Blast?

Scroll Articles - Current Issue: Is the Click Mightier than the Blast?: "By Shruti Rattan (the main female character of The Best Seller)

Peaking with the Parents

If sales peaked for the Mother's Day celebrations, Father's Day hasn't been too bad either.
Lots of parents seem to find The Best Seller inflicted on them nowadays.

Kindling the Flame

Got my check from Amazon Kindle.
Royalty on the past three months of sales amount to more than the sum-total of what traditional publishers have paid me all these years.

Ending May on a high

Middle of May - Sales still strong

Blog of Simple Simon: A 'Closer' look at the Cosmos of Cubicle and Click...

Blog of Simple Simon: A 'Closer' look at the Cosmos of Cubicle and Click...: After 'Eyes Wide Shut' and 'Blow Up', Simon van der Wiel now analyses a scene from 'Closer' to draw parallels with the Corporate World.

Surge of Sales - Mother's Day?

A surge of sales this weekend brings The Best Seller to number 4 on a special Kindle category. Mother's day gift? Maybe...

It stays on number 2 on Financial Crisis best sellers results.

The FunAsia Interview - the complete script

Here is the complete script of the interview with FunAsia Radio 700 AM on 6th April. 


A special thanks to Sarveshi, the gracious and charming host of the show.

Sarveshi Shukla : In the next segment, we will be talking to someone who has broken all conventional boundaries and stood by what he feels.
I had once read – “We are individually multiple..” – I can say I have seen these multiple individualities in this one person…

Joining from Baden, Switzerland
at 2 in the morning

I came to know him through an internal magazine circulated in a US based IT company.  The magazine had published an article about a person who was not restricted by the perimeters of his job. Apart from having a successful career an IT, he had by then authored 2 books which had been critically acclaimed. I was intrigued. And I reached out to him. And he responded and I have since then had a chance to know him through his works and on a personal level. So here people, I have Mr. Arunabha Sengupta, live with us from Baden, Switzerland. Welcome to the airwaves of FunAsia Radio, 700 AM sir.
Arunabha Sengupta – Thank you Sarveshi, I am glad to join you. To give you an idea of how glad I am, let me tell you that it is two o’clock in the morning here in Switzerland and I am up just to speak to you.

The Host - Sarveshi

SS- That should not be a problem for you since I know you are an early riser.
AS – Sarveshi, five thirty in the morning is early. Two o’clock is still late.

SS – So to begin with I would like to congratulate you on the success of your latest work, your book The Best Seller.
AS – Thank you. As an independent author, it had been with a touch of irony that I had named my new book The Best Seller. In the modern day, unless you have the blessings of a publishing monolith and their marketing resources with media gimmicks, you generally tend to wind up at the bottom of the pile regardless of the quality of writing. However, Foreword Clarion Reviews, one of the most respected reviewers, gave it the maximum rating with some excellent comments and I found that it was living up to its name in the Amazon marketplace – especially on Kindle. It is topping the Best Seller charts in a couple of select categories. A couple of articles about me in the Commonwealth Literature journals in India and France around this time have also helped the sales.

SS– …..Please tell our audience abt the premise of this book and how you arrived at this story. What led to it?
AS – The novel is set in Amsterdam and the action is played out with the Financial Crisis as the backdrop. It is also about a struggling author. He takes on a number of professions to make ends meet - including investigative journalism, teaching tai chi. He also acts as a ghost blogger for a linguistically challenged Vice President of a multinational bank. The action takes off when he impersonates a consultant friend during a financial crisis conference. He paraphrases Indian philosophy and is hailed as a rising thinker on economics.
How I wrote this story, I personally arrived in Amsterdam with my family in 2009, when the crisis was closing all possible businesses – and I have had first-hand experience of living under the constant shadow of the financial crisis looming over the scene. A person can live in fear of a disaster for a limited period of time after which he has to either philosophize or laugh about the situation. To me the ideal reaction was humor, to write about all the different farcical ways the world reacts to both booms and busts in the present day.

SS–I have been fortunate to have read all your published works and I have observed how your writings reflect in some way your journey through the IT industry.  So how close are all your protagonists to you?
AS – I believe any author writing realistic fiction borrows a lot of the material from his or her own life. So, most of what I have documented in my writings have been extrapolations of my experiences. Built on the experiences to make it fictional. Sometimes I have to tone it down, because the truth about some of the corporate circus can be difficult to digest for the readers even in fictional form. A lot of the events depicted in most of the books have happened to me. Some of the reactions of my protagonists are the ways I have reacted to situations or the ways I wish I had.
In every book there is a dimension of reality, where my experiences are portrayed through the protagonist and a dimension of fiction where the story is built upon these experiences. The Best Seller, for example, has a lot of funny and not so funny experiences which have taken place in the last few years of my life – but a lot of it is fiction as well.
In these changing times, the IT industry is as much a part of modern day India and the world as any other profession. Previously Mulk Raj Anand, RK Narayan wrote about the farmers, government clerks the common man of earlier days … It makes sense to write about the IT industry now since it has such an impact on the landscape of the common man. And it also makes sense for such stories to be written by an insider.

SS – Absolutely, and there are very few people in the industry who have such a talent for writing. I have noticed that Aikido has also been a strong aspect of your writing. So tell us little bit abt this art form and how it has such an influence on you as a person and in your writing
AS – As with writing, Aikido is a passion for me. For those who are not aware, it is a Japanese martial art. I have been training in this art for more than 14 years and am a black belt. To put things in perspective, I have a professional certification called Six Sigma black belt which took just a three month effort on my part, but in Aikido I have to get a black belt after training for a decade.. As in any Japanese art, it becomes a way of life. There is a philosophy behind the art which determines the ways I act and take decisions in real life.
Much of Aikido is about a continuous natural flow, which I hope is reflected in my writings. My second novel, Big Apple 2 Bites, has Aikido as a very important dimension in the storyline

SS -  Big Apple 2 Bites, for all our listeners, was Arunabha Sengupta’s second novel and one of the best novels to be written with the 9/11 as the backdrop. It is a brilliantly written novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it, as I am enjoying the current novel – The Best Seller. Another part of your writing is about Cricket.. I have also read your short stories which had cricket as the underlying common thread and you weaved such great stories around it on various themes… So am sure all our audience here would be interested in knowing how has the World cup 2011 journey been for you? What are your thoughts?
AS – The World Cup was amazing. I was watching the final in an Irish Pub in Zurich, one of the very few places in Switzerland where you can watch cricket on TV. Soon became a little India in its own way. And with each stroke of Dhoni and Gambhir, the crowd grew louder. People were wondering what was going on in the corner, because the rest of the screens were showing football and rugby and very few people knew cricket was being played.
While no one is happier than me at the success of the Indian cricket team, it is also somewhat alarming for me to see the amount of obsession and fanaticism about the game has reached such a stage that losing is scarcely an option for the Indian team any more. One false step means their being put on the defendant’s box and their failures scruitinised by everyone in multiple TV channels, websites and social media. I would like to remind everyone that much as we want the success of our team, it is the dignity with which we bear defeats as well that makes us true sports fans. The gods that we create on the cricket field are very mortal, and along with their talent and dedication, they have their flaws and frailties. They already play with the pressure of a billion expectant fans. It would make it easy for them if we reacted less radically and stopped ourselves from criticizing every move, every action when they have a bad day in office.

SS -  Very true. It is important to remember that the gods we create are human as well. We will be going in for a break soon, and before that I would want you tell our audience about various mediums of buying this book and the others, Best Seller and Big Apple 2 Bites and Labyrinth. … And I must say that it’s great to see the sales going great through Amazon and you also have a Kindle version of your book.
AS – The book is available on Amazon.com. If you search Financial Crisis Best Sellers, it is right there among the top three. You can also search with my last name – Sengupta – with the easily remembered title of the book, The Best Seller. The Kindle e-Reader edition is selling in good numbers. So, if you are interested, please go online and click away.

SS– We will be going in for a short commercial break now. With us we have Mr. Arunabha Sengupta, writer, aikido black belt, cricket blogger and when we come back he is going to talk about someone very special to him … and also very special to all the Indians around the world. When we come back, we will be discussing about Sachin Tendulkar. So do stay tuned.
…
Welcome back to FunAsia Radio, we have with us Mr. Arunabha Sengupta. My next question is about making gods of players we admire. And speaking of gods, of course you have written some wonderful articles about The God .. Sachin Tendulkar …
 AS –I do have a blog on cricket which is visited by more than 25000 people. Sachin Tendulkar features in my writings – as he does in my life. As a young Indian growing up in the nineties, as the country was entering globalization trying to make a mark on the map of the world, we could not have a better icon to look up to. He is synonymous with emerging India, boom time India – proving that we can be at the very top of the world, the best at what we can do. He has carried the hopes and dreams of billions, has conquered all peaks in the cricketing world while living very humbly and what surprises me is that even now is filled with the motivation to go out and play for the country.  When he runs after the ball, it is like a 18 year old. I have realized recently, that I started following his exploits when he was 15 and I was 15 … and I have not known adult life without Sachin Tendulkar trotting out to bat at number four for India in Tests and opening the innings in the One Day Internationals. The day he decides to quit millions of Indians will start walking alone. A thought many of us don’t want to think.

SS -  Very true. I have read your pieces on Sachin Tendulkar and everyone will identify with them, and will agree with them. I am so glad we could actually win the world cup and Sachin had been such an integral part … and everyone in the team said that Sachin had been carrying the burden for 21 years and now they wanted to take it forwad,
AS - Everyone said that they had done it for Sachin. And for someone as young as Virat Kohli to say something as mature as what you just mentioned – about him having carried the burden for 21 years and now it being the turn of team members to carry him, shows us exactly the stature of the man. It was a touching moment.

SS -Absolutely Now, before you leave, is there any parting thought and if you would like to share with our listeners
AS- I am not the sort of person very comfortable with advising others. However, I would like to say that life has a lot to offer. And just as you had introduced me as someone who has not been bound by parameters,  I thought I would be more happy with writing, so I continued writing. So, if you have a passion, the best thing to do is to follow it.

SS - That was very well put. And this was the first thing you had told me in our very first conversation and is always at the back of my mind. Today, if anything motivates me to come here after my regular work and do a radio show, it is the memory of those words. We need to follow our passions if we are to live. Thanks for joining us and on behalf of FunAsia we wish you success and hope to read more of your works.
Thanks once again Arunabha for taking some time out of your schedule and chatting with us… On behalf of FunAsia Radio, I wish you success and we look forward to reading more of your works ….

Blog of Simple Simon: The Corporate Genius - spoof of Malcolm Gladwell

Blog of Simple Simon: The Corporate Genius - spoof of Malcolm Gladwell: Simon van der Wiel wonders what the 10000 hour genius syndrome discussed in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers has in store for Corporate Cubicle Creatures.

Nearing the end of April on the crest

Senantix.com-Article in The Critical Endeavour

Senantix.com-News

Article in the Critical Endeavour - The Software Professional in Indian English Fiction

Past the middle of April, Sales still good

Press Release on Mmdnewswire

http://www.mmdnewswire.com/arunabha-sengupta-the-best-seller-37390.html

Arunabha Sengupta documents one man's journey to learn the difference between truth and fabrication in the fictional novel, "The Best Seller"

BADEN, Switzerland (MMD Newswire) April 19, 2011 -- Arunabha Sengupta uses his novel, "The Best Seller" (ISBN 145380398X) to comment on the corporate world as well as the financial crisis the entire world seems to be facing. He uses his own experiences in the corporate circus as well as other personal experiences, including his black belt in Aikido, to create the story of Sandeep Gupta.

Struggling author Sandeep Gupta dabbles in various professions to make ends meet while sending his manuscripts to uninterested publishers and agents everywhere. The dedicated tai chi student travels to Amsterdam for a seminar, where he also plans on hunting down agents for his book. In order to increase his chances for publication, he persuades his childhood friend, Pritam Mitra, a distinguished consultant, to joyride across Europe and leave Sandeep to parade around as him at a conference dealing with the global financial crisis.

Rather than preparing for the presentation, Sandeep relies on the teachings from an Indian philosophical text to make his presentation a success. Senior management is so impressed that they ask Sandeep to collaborate in the writing of a model solution to the crisis. He agrees and remains at the firm, impersonating his friend and preparing a paper on the crisis based on nothing but philosophy-laced fabrication. He fails to fit into the corporate world of the firm and teaches tai chi to his co-workers, screens raunchy Woody Allen films as team building exercises and uses the office stationery to continue sending his manuscript to publishers.

Sandeep's unusual antics attract the attention of Shruti, a doctorate student and talented writer, Simon, who writes about him in his blog and Dr. Roy, a psychiatrist interested in the effects of the Internet. In order to expedite the paper, the four meditate over the questions of the modern world in an Amsterdam coffee shop under a cloud of cannabis. The drug-inspired paper is heralded as a new age solution, creating more demands on Sandeep as he struggles to get his own life back, while searching for the truth in the false world full of manufactured corporate consent and noise.

In addition to the struggles Sandeep faces, Sengupta comments on corporate greed, jealousy, obsession, tai chi and love in "The Best Seller." He attempts to accurately portray the rat race nature of life and how easy it can be for one to get swept up in the antics. He believes that his novel deals with a complex contemporary issue in a humorous, entertaining way.

"The Best Seller" is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels.

About the Author:

Arunabha Sengupta is an author who has lived and worked around the globe. He is married and lives in Switzerland with his wife and daughter. He is a black belt in Aikido, and has worked as a process consultant. Hence, he is familiar to the world of martial arts and the corporate environment that form the bulwark of his current novel. He has written two other novels, "Labyrinth: A Novel about the Software Industry" and "Big Apple 2 Bites: A Novel of Love, 9/11 and Aikido."

Blog of Simple Simon: Innovation Idolatory and Idiocy

Blog of Simple Simon: Innovation Idolatory and Idiocy: Simon is faced with a barrage of Idiocy masquerading as Innovation.

Steady Sales through April

Senantix.com-SENtinel of SENsibility and SENse of Humor - The official website of Arunabha Sengupta

The Senantix Channels: The Senantix Channels

Senantix is the macabre Avatar of Arunabha Sengupta on the World Wide Web. Here is a listing of all the blogs, books and websites that he inflicts on the world, along with the names of his accomplices.