Karan Mahajan – författare

Author of The Association of Small Bombs, longlisted for the National Book Award

Rakesh Ahuja, a Government Minister in New Delhi, is beset by problems: thirteen children and another on the way; a wife who mourns the loss of her favorite TV star; and a teenaged son with somereally strong opinions about family planning.

To make matters worse, looming over this comical farrago are secrets—both personal and political—that threaten to push the Ahuja household into disastrous turmoil. Following father and son as they blunder their way across the troubled landscape of New Delhi, Karan Mahajan brilliantly captures the frenetic pace of India''s capital city to create a searing portrait of modern family life.

Mr Ahuja, Delhi''s Minister of Urban Development, has too much on his hands: thirteen children and another on the way. All at sea among his sprawling, noisy brood he reaches out to Arjun, his eldest, and seemingly wisest, son. But Arjun has his own problems: how to tell the girl on the school bus that he''s crazy about her? This uproarious debut follows father and son as they blunder their way over and under the flyovers of the megalopolis in a moving - and fast-moving - comic portrait of modern family life.