Contemporary Authors

• Opening Night - 2012 HarperCollins India, Uttar Pradesh, India
• The Windfall - 2017 Crown, New York, NY

• New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/nyregion/how-diksha-basu-a-novelist-spends-her-sundays.html

  How Diksha Basu, a Novelist, Spends Her Sundays
  Sunday Routine
  By SHIVANI VORA JUNE 30, 2017
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  Mikey McCleary and Diksha Basu holding their daughter, Sky, in their apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
  The novelist Diksha Basu will write on a Sunday, but only when the mood strikes. “I can only write when I feel creative and the words flow, and that’s not something you can plan for,” said Ms. Basu, who is working on her second novel. Her first, “The Windfall,” about a family who comes into a large sum of money in New Delhi, recently hit the stores and has been optioned for a possible television series. Ms. Basu, 33, who divides her time between Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Mumbai, is married to Mikey McCleary, 48, a Bollywood music producer. The couple have a 2-month-old daughter, Sky Aria Basu-McCleary. SHIVANI VORA

  INFANT AND INDIA HOURS Traditionally, I’ve never been an early riser. I often write late into the night, but as a new mother, that has changed. Sky wakes up between 5:30 and 5:45, hence I do as well. Mikey works India hours, and since it’s early afternoon there when it’s morning here, he is also up, and the whole apartment is buzzing.

  Photo

  Ms. Basu often has a casual breakfast at Lilia Caffé. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
  WINDOW ONTO WILLIAMSBURG Sky is starved, so the first thing I do is nurse her while sitting in a rocking chair by the window in our bedroom, which overlooks McCarren Park. I see partyers come home from their night out and always think back to how my life was prebaby. When I’m done nursing, I cuddle and play with her and read to her. We always have some sort of music playing, whether it’s the latest pop songs, Bollywood hits, old French songs, jazz.

  BREAKFAST CASUAL Around 7, we make it a point to head out and we wear sweats or sometimes even pajamas, but the great thing about living in our neighborhood is that there are lots of other parents with babies out who also have similar attire. We go to Lilia Caffé and always get their cappuccinos and olive oil cake to go and walk to McCarren Park. We’ll eventually find a bench where we sit down and enjoy our breakfast. When Sky starts to get a little fussy, we head back home.

  Photo

  Ms. Basu and her daughter with Rachael Merola and her son at Kesté in Brooklyn. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
  THE BASIC THINGS Mikey is in India often for work, and for much of our relationship we’ve lived apart, so it’s really nice that we’re together, and we love being homebodies. Sometimes he’ll work and I’ll write, but other times, we’re hanging out in our living room and relishing being in the same space together. We might do emails, catch up on the latest issues of The Economist or The New Yorker or watching the news. All these might be routine for many couples, but for us, it’s so novel and so wonderful to do the basic things together.

  FRIENDS AND FOOD Around 12:30, we meet up with someone or the other in our area for lunch. We’re the only people with kids so far, so we choose some place kid-friendly, which means practically anything in the neighborhood. Meadowsweet is a favorite — their duck confit is a killer. We also like the truffle burrata pizza at Kesté and the oat pancakes at Sauvage.

  Photo

  Ms. Basu’s parents, Alaka Basu, left, and Kaushik Basu paying a visit to her home. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
  FERRY TO THE FAMILY My parents live in Midtown East, and we make it a point to see them every Sunday. My brother and his wife live in Manhattan, too, and they have a 3-year-old, Avaaz, and he’s there, and my parents coo over their two grandkids.

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  ANXIETY CREEPS IN By the time we’re back home, it’s 8, and Sky has usually fallen asleep. Around this time, I start getting anxious. It could be about my writing or larger issues such as mortality. Usually, I try to calm myself down by writing. While I write, Mikey makes dinner.

  A PROPER MEAL Mikey loves to cook, and when he tells me the meal is ready, we sit down at our dining table and have a proper meal. It could be a fish like a salmon, a steak salad or pulled pork, but it’s always delicious. We may drink wine or a bit of whisky to go along with the food.

  DECOMPRESS It’s Mikey’s turn to tend to his work while I clean. Sky wakes up at 10 for another feed and a diaper change, and when she’s done, we get into bed and may do a bit of reading and watch some TV just to decompress from the day. Then, we’re out. Sky will be up in the middle of the night for a feed and up early to start her day, and sleep is at a premium.

  Sunday Routine readers can follow Diksha Basu on Twitter on Sunday @dikshabasu.

• Livemint - http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/lFboiyf0JpM8oknFT1ClJM/Diksha-Basu-The-jokes-on-everyone.html

  Diksha Basu: The joke’s on everyone
  Diksha Basu speaks of the art of creating gentle laughter and entering the mind of a 52-year-old man for her new novel ‘The Windfall’
  Diya Kohli

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  Diksha Basu’s new novel creates a world of the newly rich in Gurugram where wealth is invariably inversely proportional to IQ. Photo: Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times.
  Diksha Basu’s new novel creates a world of the newly rich in Gurugram where wealth is invariably inversely proportional to IQ. Photo: Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times.
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  Diksha Basu spent the first 10 years of her life in Delhi and even after she moved to the US, she never severed ties with the city. She returns every few months; Delhi is in her blood, she says. So it is only fitting that her new novel, The Windfall, is set in the Capital. The book gently pokes fun at the city’s foibles, its petty neighbourhood politics and laughs at its absurdities. It follows the dramatic upswing in the fortunes of the Jhas, a middle-class family living in an east Delhi housing society, and charts their journey to the glamorous gated enclaves of Gurugram and into the echelons of the rich and restless, notably the Chopra family. Ensconced in his Punjabi baroque mansion complete with a faux Sistine chapel ceiling, Mr Chopra is a prototype of a familiar Delhi Punjabi whose wealth is often inversely proportional to his IQ. And he is the perfect model for Mr Jha to emulate. Keeping up with Joneses was never this fun as the two newly minted neighbours wend their way through ludicrous situations.

  Through the novel, Basu is both an insider as well as the impartial outsider who offers a range of humorous perspectives on the city through its motley characters. This is Basu’s second novel (her first was Opening Night published in 2012). It has been published by Crown in the US and simultaneously released in India, UK, Australia and New Zealand. It is also being optioned as a US TV series by Paramount Television with Shonali Bose (of Margarita With A Straw fame) as the director. In a curious turn of events, Basu’s book coincided with the birth of her first child, and she says , it has been crazy as well as fantastic as she can’t get anxious about one as her mind is always distracted by the other. Edited excerpts from an interview:

  You grew up in Delhi in the 1990s, just after liberalization opened up the economy. Did you see the city and its inhabitants graduate from Maruti 800 to Mercedes and the birth of the Mr Chopra prototype?

  The transformation was particularly visible for me as I moved to America in the mid-1990s and thereafter started coming back to Delhi every few months. So, I think I saw the change more distinctly than if I was experiencing things on a daily basis. I think most of us who lived in Delhi then (and it continues even now) saw that money does come in windfalls in India. It’s such a complex country and economy where certain sectors are booming so fast that money comes in, in a flood as opposed to a steady trickle. As far as my characters are concerned, it is true that I started becoming more aware of people and things around me in the city as I was growing up. However the basic prototype for a character like Mr Chopra and his general sense of male bravado and male one-upmanship is timeless.

  The Windfall By Diksha Basu, Bloomsbury, 294 pages, Rs499.
  The Windfall By Diksha Basu, Bloomsbury, 294 pages, Rs499.
  You have said that this book began as a collection of short stories that you were writing during your master of fine arts (MFA) at Columbia University. How did that culminate in the crazy universe of the Jhas, the Guptas and the Chopras?

  So when I was doing the MFA, everyone worked within the short story format simply because it was a simpler structure for workshops. It was a very character-driven collection of interconnected stories right from the beginning. And although they were episodic events, they seemed like they were on their way to becoming a novel. Then when I graduated and started working with my agent, we realized there was already an underlying narrative arc within the stories and we wanted to turn that into something more fulfilling. I much prefer full-length novels to the short story and so I was very keen to make the transition. And after we worked on them for two years, we managed to turn it into a full-fledged novel. One of the advantages of working up from the short story is that I already had my characters and they were very alive in my mind and I could place them into any situation. And that made writing the novel very satisfying.

  Your central protagonist is the 52-year-old newly-rich Mr Jha with a penchant for sequined sofas. How hard was it to get into his head?

  I found it worryingly easy to get into the head of a middle-aged man and I don’t know what that says about me. I was so sick of reading 20-something women writing about 20-something women. I did just one short story that was from Mr Jha’s perspective and I had so much fun with it because it is completely the opposite of what I know and it has allowed me to let my imagination go wherever it wanted to. I gave it to my professor Gary Shteyngart who was so supportive and he claims he laughed loudly all through the story. I think I just needed someone to tell me it’s fiction and you are allowed to do whatever you want and I was somehow doing it successfully, so I kept with it. One of the reasons I write in the first place is because it allows you to live multiple lives within our one life through our characters. And it was really fun to live Mr Jha’s life while I was writing this book. And it’s interesting that while Mr Jha’s particularities are very deeply rooted in Delhi, they also capture something universal. His insecurities, male bravado, sense of competition and pettiness go beyond city and country lines.

  It’s interesting that you have perspectives across the social spectrum and even otherwise invisible figures—the drivers, domestic help and watchmen—have strong personalities in your book.

  As I mentioned, the idea of having jokes about everyone also translates into the fact that I give everyone a voice. I use the shifting third person perspective and dip in and out of people’s minds and one of the things that interests me the most as a writer is all that is not said in human interactions. Or the misunderstandings that take place with what is said. I am intrigued by the subject of dialogue, how two people can interpret the same situation completely differently. So it became obvious that in order to tap into that, I had to create a rich mental world in which a lot of different perspectives were present.

  And while I love the idea of ‘emotional jet lag’, for me this is the only reality I know.... I can’t imagine the thought of not being at multiple places at once.
  -
  Your first book, ‘Opening Night’, was published in 2012. Why are so many journalists calling ‘The Windfall’ your first book? How much have you evolved as a writer since then?

  This is because the US is my primary publisher and this is my American debut. Also I have completely transformed as a writer since then. That was a horribly bad book and this one I think is quite strong. I did an MFA in between and spent time honing my skills.

  In one of your interviews you mentioned that you were a cultural chameleon due to your travels and upbringing across continents. How has this permeated your writing? Do you ever feel an emotional jet lag as you move between places?

  So I think a lot of what I do in this book and the only bits that are autobiographical are the physical geographic locations because I have lived in Delhi, I have lived in New York City and I have lived in Ithaca. The fact that I can move away from these cities and write about them from a distance helps me write about them better. Because I don’t have the proximity to these cities while I am writing about them, I don’t get frustrated by them. Delhi is deeply ingrained in me and is literally in my blood. I can see all its bureaucracy, its frustrations, the heat and the cold and the humour when I am a little farther away. My travels give me the physical distance I need in order to write about it. New York is the same. In fact, I often find myself writing about the city I’m not in. I find myself writing about New York when I’m in Mumbai and Delhi when I’m in New York. I never write about the city I’m actually in at that particular time. And while I love the idea of “emotional jet lag”, for me this is the only reality I know. I do it so often that I am usually back in a place before I begin to miss it. I can’t imagine the thought of not being at multiple places at once.

  It is becoming increasingly hard to be humorous in India where we take everything very seriously. And while characters like Mr Chopra and Mr Jha, different versions of South Delhi’s nouveau riche, are valid targets for satire, did you worry about offending anyone?

  I try not to think about that and I think that as long as you are making fun of everyone, its fair game. And also what I think is crucial and I hope it comes across that I have such a deep love for all my characters, that I am not at any point mocking them. I feel that to laugh at someone with affection is very different from cruel mockery. And it should be equal opportunity for everyone to gently laugh at people and situations. And we should be able to do this irrespective of class, gender or race. The fact that everyone is losing that ability a little bit is increasingly leading to horrific situations around the world.

  This also brings me to my next question, which is about censorship and its increasing influence in India. As a writer who is using the tropes of humour and satire, both of which have been targeted in the past, what do you feel about it?

  I think it’s shocking and it’s sad that a country like India, which was not built on those ideals, is now falling back on censorship. And I have to be careful even as I am saying this and I think that it is extremely frightening. The level at which this is happening, the most recent one being Amartya Sen’s documentary (The Argumentative Indian) where certain words are considered unacceptable, is very sad and shocking. I definitely hope we see a reversal of that trend in India. As a writer I try not to think about this idea of censorship or offending sentiments. I think the problem is that the whole world is very easily offended and I hope people are reading my book and others in order to enjoy fiction rather than look for things that could offend them.

  Tell us about your upcoming work.

  My next book is a loose spinoff of The Windfall because I felt so much love for so many of the characters that I wasn’t ready to leave them. I am so lucky to have contemporary India as inspiration for fiction that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the setting either.

  First Published: Sat, Jul 22 2017. 11 20 AM IST

• Writer's Digest - http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/got-agent-debut-novelist-diksha-basu

  How I Got My Agent: Debut Novelist Diksha Basu
  By: Guest Column | June 27, 2017
  26
  As I finished my MFA at Columbia University, I ventured out into the world armed with a manuscript and prepared to search for an agent. The world of query letters and agent research is daunting and exhausting, and after just a few rejections, I was quickly giving up hope.

  This guest post is by Diksha Basu. Basu is a writer and occasional actor. Originally from New Delhi, India, she holds a BA in Economics from Cornell University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University and now divides her time between New York City and Mumbai.

  Her debut novel, THE WINDFALL, is now available wherever books are sold.

  Instead of completely surrendering, I decided to ask for help from faculty members who knew my work well. I had taken a few classes with David Ebershoff and I emailed him asking for advice. David immediately replied with a list of agents he thought would like my work and suggested I query them specifically.

  I did and I was fortunate enough to get more than one offer for representation. The offers followed similar patterns—an editorial note with an offer to continue the conversation on the phone. Then, after a long and useful call, an in-person meeting—either over lunch or in an office.

  At this point, when I had more than one offer, I asked a published writer friend for advice and she said to pick an agent who didn’t intimidate me. As I tend to do, I ignored the well-meaning advice completely and picked the agent who intimidated me the most, and I am so glad I did. Adam Eaglin at the Elyse Cheney Agency intimidated me enough that I knew I wouldn’t miss deadlines. Of course that wasn’t the only criterion. Right from our first email interactions, Adam also seemed to really understand my work: he was supportive while also being critical when necessary, and his feedback transformed how I saw my book.

  Over the next two years, I worked closely with him to turn my collection of stories into a novel. Adam is a very involved agent who patiently reads drafts and responds with detailed editorial feedback. In addition to his editorial role, Adam seems to know how to handle my personality well while giving me feedback—he knows when I’m starting to fade and need encouragement.

  It’s been almost three years now that I’ve been working with him and he’s become a friend along the way, in addition to being my agent. Although, come to think of it, I don’t hear him call me a friend quite as often as I do.

  Screen Shot 2016-08-08 at 2.57.50 PM

  The biggest literary agent database anywhere
  is the Guide to Literary Agents. Pick up the
  most recent updated edition online at a discount.

  Freese-HeadshotIf you’re an agent looking to update your information or an author interested in contributing to the GLA blog or the next edition of the book, contact Writer’s Digest Books Managing Editor Cris Freese at cris.freese@fwmedia.com.

• Hindustan Times - http://www.hindustantimes.com/books/my-life-s-not-interesting-enough/story-U1vIwtZQpZAzAFERwgYLbL.html

  'My life’s not interesting enough'
  Diksha Basu on why her first book began as a story about her struggle in Bollywood before turning fiction.

  BOOKS Updated: Jan 08, 2012 14:57 IST
  Shweta Mehta
  Shweta Mehta
  Hindustan Times
  Unlike most authors, writing didn’t come naturally to Diksha Basu. She studied economics, just like father Kaushik Basu, the country’s Chief Economic Adviser.

  BooksThen she shunned the subject to move to Mumbai from New York for an acting career. But four years, two plays, an English film and a TV show later, she finds herself working as a full-time author and enjoying every minute of it.
  Basu’s debut novel, Opening Night, is being launched today. The book based on a young woman from the US, who moves to Mumbai to try and make it as an actor in Bollywood may well be mistaken as an account of her own life.

  Is it autobiographical, then? “No,” laughs Basu, who had moved from upstate New York to Bandra for four years, looking to explore a career in theatre.

  “Like all books, it did start off based on me, but when I realised my own life wasn’t interesting enough to document, even though I’d hoped it was, it started to become fiction.”

  Prod her further and she reveals, “This girl is quite naive and unaware of how India has changed over the past 10-15 years. She’s quite American in her ways despite being Indian. She comes here to act, determined not to fall into clichés, or in love, or any of those typical things. She’s looking for fame and fortune. Although she falls in love with a neurotic ex-model, the story is mainly about her search for a career.”

  She refers to her interest in writing as something she stumbled upon.

  She recalls, “I was getting frustrated with acting and went through the typical questions. Then suddenly, within two years of being in Mumbai, I had started writing bits and pieces, a couple of newspaper articles, some short pieces about my experiences in Mumbai, and that’s when my interest started to turn. I found it to be an escape, although I don’t think I was very good at it initially.”

  But Basu, who’s already working on her second book, assures us this is her full-time career now. Her days of acting are behind her.

  Ask if we might ever see the book translated to film and she replies instantly, “Yes, I’d love to be involved with screenwriting for it, but I think I’m done with acting.”

  Opening Night is published by Harper Collins. It will be launched by author Chetan Bhagat today at 12.30 pm at Crossword, Juhu.

• NPR - http://www.npr.org/2017/06/25/534135422/a-new-delhi-family-learns-to-navigate-wealth-after-a-windfall

  < A New Delhi Family Learns To Navigate Wealth After A 'Windfall' June 25, 20178:06 AM ET Listen· 6:01 6:01 Queue Download Embed Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST: In the novel "The Windfall," a newly minted tech millionaire buys a big fancy house, a flashy car, and he leaves his middle-class life behind to rub elbows with the superrich. What follows is a delightful comedy of errors where he and his family navigate the unexpected pressures and pleasures of newfound wealth in modern India. Author Diksha Basu joins us now from our studios in New York. Welcome to the program. DIKSHA BASU: Thank you so much for having me. GARCIA-NAVARRO: So making a fortune and having all the trappings of wealth, I guess, aren't just part of the American dream. In the past few decades, India has minted more millionaires than many other developing countries. Tell us about the world where you set this book. BASU: So this book is set in New Delhi. And it starts in the mid-'90s and comes up to present day. And I myself grew up in New Delhi in the '90s, and I saw the explosion of wealth all around me. And it was hard to ignore. And that's what led to this novel. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, so into this world of newfound wealth are thrust Mr. and Mrs. Jha, who leave the apartment where they have lived all their lives to move to what I take is the Beverly Hills of New Delhi. Am I right there? BASU: That's a good way of putting it. Yes, exactly. GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right, tell us about the Jha family. BASU: So the Jha family start off, like you said, just an average middle-class, middle-aged couple. Their son, Rupak, is doing an M.B.A in America. And Mr. Jha suddenly comes into a large windfall of money. He sells a website. It's not - you know, it's not money that comes from winning a lottery. He has worked hard in order to earn this money. But it comes in one lump sum as opposed to an accumulated income over a lifetime of work. So he gets this large windfall of money and decides to move him and his wife from their middle-class neighborhood to the flashy suburb of Gurgaon into a mini-mansion of their own. GARCIA-NAVARRO: One of the funny conflicts in this book is about the expectation of what being wealthy really means. And you have Mr. and Mrs. Jha, and they've sent their son, as you mentioned, to the United States. And they think that that's a real sign of status. But when they meet the neighbors, they have a different view of what sons should be doing and what that shows about your status in the world. BASU: Right. They do. For them, the children working is a sign of the parents not succeeding because they cannot provide for their child through life. So for these wealthy neighbors, the fact that the - Rupak, the fact that the Jha's son actually has to go and study is seen like something he does out of necessity, not a step towards his own success. It's looked at with sympathy that the poor fellow has to study in order to make a living for himself, whereas, in their home, their son in his late 20s doesn't actually do anything. He plays tennis and flirts with girls and doesn't actually work towards making anything of his own life. And that is the symbol of his parents' success. GARCIA-NAVARRO: There are so many sharply observed moments in the book and, specifically, about how women and men are treated differently. What were you trying to show? You discuss this with so many of the different female characters. BASU: So what I was trying to show - and this is not about Indian women in general. I think this is more universal for women. It's almost like there's no winning. Yes, on the one hand, politically, all over the world, they're surprisingly regressive laws being put in order to keep women down. And that is shocking given that it's 2017. But I'm not - I wasn't speaking to the larger issue. What interests me is women trying to do something different within their own societal norms - whatever that may be. If you try to do something different, you will get criticized. And so for instance, one of my characters, Mrs. Ray, she's a young widow. And she is enjoying widowhood, not that she didn't love her husband. She did. But he passed away. She's mourned. She's gotten over it. There's no father, no husband, no son. She is living on her own. And what she is doing is looked at with a lot of suspicion and often criticism. And at the same time, what I found while I was writing this book, I had just got engaged and then married. And in my urban elite Indian female circle, to get married and to have a child, which I just did, is looked at as betraying the rest of my social circle. So even though my... GARCIA-NAVARRO: Betraying? BASU: Yeah. It's sort of looked at as I shouldn't have chosen those conventional choices. And so then I end up having to defend what I looked at as conventional choices, where someone like Mrs. Ray is having to defend what is looked at as unconventional choices. GARCIA-NAVARRO: You made this book a sort of tender comedy. But it could have been a tragedy, I suppose. These are people who left the people they cared about, they'd grown up with, to ascend socially. But you don't seem to judge them. BASU: I don't. I love them. I really like all of them. And I don't think it is as simple as a tagline of how wealth destroys love. I don't think it does. I think it's much more complex than that. And I don't think it's as simple as, oh, look at the poor slum children smiling through their poverty, which is often how some literature from India is perceived. I don't think it is black and white. I think wealth can be destructive just as much as poverty can be destructive. And wealth can be irrelevant. And wealth can also bring a family together in a completely different and unexpected way. GARCIA-NAVARRO: I don't want to give away the end of the book. But everyone finds their place in the end. So why did you want to give the book a sort of sweeter ending? BASU: I think for my own sake, my readers' sake, my desire to be a bit more optimistic maybe than I am. I will tell you, I had a hard time with the ending. I wasn't sure. It wasn't heading towards a happy ending at first. But I felt my characters deserved it. And I felt the book starts with enough love and affection amongst my characters that they can weather storms together. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Author Diksha Basu, her new novel is "The Windfall." Thank you so much. BASU: Thank you. It's been a privilege talking to you. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

The Windfall
264.17 (Apr. 24, 2017): p59+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* The Windfall

Diksha Basu. Crown, $26 (3P4p) ISBN 978-0-451-49891-5

Culture and capital clash in Basu's charming, funny debut, which finds middle-aged Anil and Bindu Jha flush with new money after Anil sells his phone directory website for a small fortune. The couple moves from their modest, cramped, noisy home in an East Delhi apartment complex to the gated community of Gurgaon, where keeping up appearances means hiring security guards and making extravagant purchases. As they try to adjust to their new lifestyle, their son, Rupak, struggles with his M.B.A. program and his own needs from halfway around the world in upstate New York, oscillating between white Florida native Elizabeth and Serena, also from Delhi, with whom he feels pressured by tradition to pursue companionship. Add to the mix Reema, Mrs. Jha's old friend from East Delhi who finds herself wooed by the brother of the Jhas' new neighbor. and Basu sets the table for a modern and heartfelt comedy of haves and have-nots. Shuttling between characters, the novel addresses a rapidly changing India from a plethora of perspectives, and the result leaves readers laughing and engrossed. (June)

Caption: Diksha Basu's The Windfall is a charming and funny debut novel about the clash of culture and capital (reviewed on this page).

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Windfall." Publishers Weekly, 24 Apr. 2017, p. 59+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491250773/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=2746a0bc. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A491250773

The Windfall
Bridget Thoreson
113.16 (Apr. 15, 2017): p22.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
The Windfall. By Diksha Basu. June 2017.304p. Crown, $26 (9780451498915).

It's tough for Anil Jha to break the news to his neighbors. After years living in their close-knit community in an apartment building in East Delhi, the Jhas are moving to an upscale neighborhood, trading the smoky kitchen (and neighbors with their noses in everyone's business) for the leafy green and quiet of a private bungalow. Mr. Jha made a small fortune when he sold a website he created, and he's determined to start living up to his new means. But his wife is less enthusiastic about the changes coming their way, and it seems her anxieties are warranted as Mr. Jha comes down with a severe case of keeping up with the Joneses--or, in his case, the Chopras. The Jhas' changing fortunes have repercussions for their son, studying for his MBA in America, and their former neighbor, a young widow who unexpectedly finds romance. In her debut novel, Basu sprinkles her send-up of social mobility in modern India with gentle indulgence for her characters, presenting the foibles of the Jhas with humanity and humor.--Bridget Thoreson

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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Thoreson, Bridget. "The Windfall." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2017, p. 22. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A492536121/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=17d137f8. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A492536121

Basu, Diksha: THE WINDFALL
(Apr. 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Basu, Diksha THE WINDFALL Crown (Adult Fiction) $26.00 6, 27 ISBN: 978-0-451-49891-5

A middle-aged Delhi couple find themselves suddenly wealthy.Mr. and Mrs. Jha are no longer young when they suddenly come into a great deal of money. Mr. Jha has sold a website he created. The money allows the Jhas to move from their East Delhi housing complex to Gurgaon, a much ritzier neighborhood, where each house has a gate, a guard, and sometimes a swimming pool. Mr. Jha throws himself into their new lifestyle, ordering a couch embedded with Swarovski crystals (which turns out to be as uncomfortable as it sounds). Mrs. Jha, meanwhile, can't convince herself to use the new hot showers, preferring instead to stick with the bucket and mug she's used to. In the meantime, the Jhas' son, Rupak, is studying for his MBA in New York. His parents don't know it yet, but he's failing his classes. Worse, he's trying to balance two women: Indian Serena, who rather resembles his mother; and blonde, American Elizabeth, whom Rupak can't imagine fitting in to his Indian life. Basu's debut novel is a funny, deceptively light treatment of money and manners in modern-day Delhi. Mr. Jha suffers from a bad case of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses--though in this case it's the Chopras next door, and they've gone so far as to have a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel installed in their foyer ceiling. Then, too, there's Mrs. Ray, a young widow from the Jhas' old neighborhood who is soon thrown together with Mr. Chopra's well-to-do brother, with predictable results. Basu manages these various storylines well, and her writing is sincere. But at times the humor feels forced, strained. Each of the characters is flawed, but those flaws seem to elicit pity rather than sympathy. At a certain point, their moneyed lives don't seem as funny as they do alienating and sad. There's something unsettling about all this that the ending does nothing to assuage, though it seems to want to. The humor seems strained in this comedy of errors, manners, and money.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Basu, Diksha: THE WINDFALL." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A489268597/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5d440bbc. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A489268597

Diksha Basu: The Windfall
91.6 (November-December 2017): p69.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 University of Oklahoma
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com
Diksha Basu

The Windfall

Crown

The Windfall follows a family that suddenly receives an exorbitant amount of wealth, catapulting them from a comfortable life into one of luxury in the wealthiest part of Delhi, a move that sends ripples out through every aspect of their lives. In this novel about belonging and ever-shifting social status, Diksha Basu's words are filled with warmth and humor.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Diksha Basu: The Windfall." World Literature Today, vol. 91, no. 6, 2017, p. 69. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511293605/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=bf2ef190. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A511293605

'The Windfall' adroitly probes questions of money and true worth
Terry Hong
(June 26, 2017): Arts and Entertainment:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Christian Science Publishing Society
http://www.csmonitor.com/About/The-Monitor-difference
Byline: Terry Hong

Mr. Jha, who not so long ago comfortably supported his family on a monthly salary equivalent to $200, sells his website for $20 million. That titular "windfall" transforms his life - and, of course, that of his family and friends. Money - who has it, how it's spent, what it buys, what it can't, what true value is, all of that - drives Diksha Basu's endearing, astute debut novel, The Windfall.

Welcome to Delhi, where the have-enoughs and the have-too-muchs live rather separate lives. Mr. and Mrs. Jha have spent the last 30 years in a housing complex in Mayur Palli in East Delhi, where they raised their son Rupak, who is currently an Ithaca College MBA candidate in upstate New York. Although occasionally annoyed by over-inquiring neighbors, the sense of community is unmistakable - squabbles are forgiven, children are cared for, meals are shared, and even stolen yoga pants are eventually returned.

Despite the familiarity, the Jhas are willing to risk significant change enabled by their sudden wealth. Mr. Jha buys a Mercedes, proudly trumpeting the built-in six-CD-player. The luxury vehicle is de rigeur in Gurgaon, one of Delhi's elite neighborhoods, where the Jhas are preparing to move into their substantial new home. Mr. Jha's first acquisition for the posh abode is a custom-designed couch - one that's studded with Swarovski crystals and delivered from Japan.

Mrs. Jha - clearly more practical (and nervous) - initially eschews the new car for ordinary taxis, argues against the installation of bathtubs as environmentally unsound, and worries about the vast changes ahead. "How were they meant to start from scratch at this age," she ponders. More importantly, "Why were they trying to start from scratch? They were happy." When the couple finally settle in Gurgaon, the concern is well-justified: "Mayur Palli felt like a different country that they had left behind and here, in this new country, Mrs. Jha did not know the language."

Next door to the Jhas are the Chopras - Mr., Mrs., and their 28-year-old son, Johnny. They've recently decorated their foyer ceiling to resemble the dome of the Sistine Chapel. Mr. Chopra feels "particularly humiliat[ed]" over the previous neighbors' move to London - to exclusive Kensington, no less - which, comparatively, can only mean he is "becoming poor." Still, that he can bankroll his Yeats-plagiarizing poet son's life of aimless privilege is a matter of particular pride.

As the neighbors begin to interact - one mustn't seem overly eager - Mr. Jha works (too) hard to be recognized as the Chopras' social equals. He wants to not-so-subtly let slip that they're flying business class to New York to visit Rupak. He buys Burberry luggage he doesn't need. He insists on serving chilled (never meant to be cold) soup because that's the latest foodie craze on "MasterChef."

Meanwhile, amidst adapting to their new status, Mrs. Jha overcomes her Gurgaon disorientation long enough to play yenta for her closest Mayur Palli friend, a too-young widow, and Mr. Chopra's older brother. Further from home, Rupak is dealing with his own amorous complications, not to mention his academic difficulties, both influenced more by what he thinks will be his parents' reactions than his own choices and actions.

Breezily entertaining enough to enthrall droves of this summer's beach and poolside readers, "Windfall" also manages to seamlessly insert urgent, relevant themes of gender inequity, socioeconomic prejudice and aggression, familial expectations and constrictions, isolation, entitlement, and more. Avoiding heavy-handed judgments (most of the time), the Delhi-born, internationally-raised, Cornell and Columbia-educated Basu writes what she knows, clearly familiar with adroitly navigating between East and West. Her global citizenry inspires sharp insights. She points out disparate labels: "'How come Americans get called expats but if we move to America, we're called immigrants?'" She exposes gendered constraints: living "day in and day out with nothing new was like being dead before dying. This kind of widowhood wasn't that different from throwing herself on her husband's funeral pyre." She unmasks the disparity between private and public selves: "... the start of their new lives ... it was now time to try and relax into these roles ... to step into a movie."

Interestingly, Basu, who is an "occasional actor," according to her bio - her Bollywood references add ticklish fun - just might have page-to-film intentions. The affecting stories, the multiple settings, the narrative flow all suggest celluloid success. (A reunion between Aamir Khan and Kajol, who were fantastic in "Fanaa," as Mr. and Mrs. Jha?) But then again, before the B/Hollywood makeover, better to grab this chance for amusement and enlightenment now.

Terry Hong writes BookDragon, a book blog for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hong, Terry. "'The Windfall' adroitly probes questions of money and true worth." Christian Science Monitor, 26 June 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A497039281/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0e717e3b. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A497039281

"The Windfall." Publishers Weekly, 24 Apr. 2017, p. 59+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491250773/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=2746a0bc. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017. Thoreson, Bridget. "The Windfall." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2017, p. 22. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A492536121/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=17d137f8. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017. "Basu, Diksha: THE WINDFALL." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A489268597/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5d440bbc. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017. "Diksha Basu: The Windfall." World Literature Today, vol. 91, no. 6, 2017, p. 69. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511293605/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=bf2ef190. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017. Hong, Terry. "'The Windfall' adroitly probes questions of money and true worth." Christian Science Monitor, 26 June 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A497039281/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0e717e3b. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017.

• On a Long Journey with Calvin and Hobbes
  https://funfeelingslife.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/opening-night-diksha-basu/
  Word count: 423

  Opening Night- Diksha Basu
  september 29, 2012 by madhulika mitra, posted in book review, frustration, life, love, love shuv and problems, movies
  Madhu Stars: 2.5/5
  All human beings Rich or poor, black or white, have one thing in common, DREAMS. And it takes tremendous amount of passion to follow them, fulfill them and this journey to hug our desires defines our lifetime.
  Opening Night might not say everything from its name, but it’s a journey of many lows and very few highs of our Lead character, Naiya Kapur. She is an Indian, born and brought up in America. She has a comfortable, sheltered life with her father. Though not very studious, she bagged herself a job in a corporate, wore stylish clothes, but gradually her high heels and pencil skirt life got monotonous like all ours. And just like all of us, at a moment she ponders, “Was this is all I dreamed off? Am I supposed to do this work all my life” And then she was bitten, in fact smitten by the Acting Bug. After performing for a small play in theatre, she felt this is what she was made for, and then as you all could have guessed, she packed her bags and ran away to mahanagari Mumbai, leaving her dreary, humdrum life behind.
  In Mumbai She met people, roamed aimlessly on streets of Bandra, fell in love, had a series of disappointments, but her roomies, jess and Dino, added a glow to her life.
  But will Naiya survive? Will her “Happily ever after “dreams come true? Will she ever have an opening Night? Or will she be bored again here in Mumbai and pack her bags back to her life in America? Grab a copy to know.
  I enjoyed the book given the Bollywood touch to it. It’s predictable at times, but still holds you. One thing which stood out for me personally was the traditional culture which Naiya held to, she never fell into bed with every stranger she met, she took her dad’s advice, she knew what she had to do and never compromised on that, may be her dollars helped her as well.
  Yes the book drags, and after a point you can guess that she would not make it at all, there is only disappointments and isolation.
  But all in all, it’s a good pass time book, with very few moments which makes you stare at the page and think for a while.

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