Sisters and Lovers - Tapa blanda

When Amar, a secretariat clerk, bumps into Nisha Gulati, ex-model, in a Delhi shopping mall, a new vista opens for him. Because of his androgynous look, Nisha suggests that Amar walks the ramp as a female model in her designer friend Richa Sharma's fashion show. Initially reluctant, Amar finally agrees to Nisha's bizarre plan and, with the latter's grooming, successfully debuts as a model, Varsha, earning a handsome appearance fee as well. Son of a poor village priest, Amar is dominated by her elder sisters who don't appreciate their one and only brother catwalking in female attire. His sisters, however, have their own agenda in which Amar has to play a supportive role. Nisha also has her hidden agenda: she wants Amar to fill up the vacant slot of a toyboy for his gay husband, Vinod, who is an architect by profession with a passion for Feng Shui and Vastu. Amar doesn't enjoy Vinod's advances but has to tolerate him because he loves Nisha. Even as Amar tries hard to sort out his tangled relationships with Nisha and Vinod, his weird sisters come to stay with him, one after another, and make his life difficult with their idiosyncrasies. When he finds Nisha snorting cocaine in a party, Amar opts out of Nisha's glitzy world and returns to his humble moorings. Even his sisters abandon Amar and he descends to a miserable existence, surviving on the charity of his neighbours. It's Nisha who finally rescues Amar from a total breakdown. Sisters And Lovers is a comic novel that takes a sneaky peek at the modelling profession and delves deep into the vagaries of familial relationships that often turn out to be hilarious as well as problematic.

Nalinaksha Bhattacharya is a witty and irreverent writer who can squeeze comedy even from pathos, and yet, is never less than fiercely serious. Born and educated in Calcutta, his stories were broadcast on the BBC World Service and published in several magazines and anthologies in India and abroad. His first two novels, Hem And Football, and its sequel, Hem And Maxine, were published by Secker and Jonathan Cape in the years 1992 and 1995 respectively. His third novel, A Fistful of Desire, was published by Penguin India in 1997. Bhattacharya now lives and works in Noida, UP, India.