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The Hindu : Advaita Kala’s “Almost Single” is about Aisha Bhatia, a 29-year-old ‘large-framed’ singleton, working in a posh hotel by day and hanging out with friends — equally single Misha and freshly divorced Anushka by night. Aisha lives in Delhi and has a wide network of relatives and a worrying mum who has no sense of timing. She has the regulation boss from hell, a hearty dislike for smug marrieds flaunting double barrel, hyphenated sir names, gay friends Nic and Ric and of course a dream boat in the form of Karan and rival in the shape of Tantalising Tanya.

And dear reader be warned any similarity to Helen Fielding’s paean to singletons, “Bridget Jones Diary”, is purely coincidental. “I get asked about Bridget Jones all the time,” Advaita exclaims. “I don’t think it is a bad thing you know as Bridget Jones is a great book. However, I would say the ‘Almost Single’ is closer to ‘Sex and the City’ as it is all about bonding between women. I would describe the book as a take on the urban single woman. It is a sliver of society.”

While “Almost Single” falls plumb into the chicklit category, Advaita, in town for a book promotion tour, says she did not write the novel keeping genres in mind. “When I first heard the term I did not much care for it as it sounded derogatory. But then I figured if giving a name helps sell the book, it is alright. And then there is lad lit also right?”

Advaita, who works with the Taj Group in Delhi, says she had “no clue about how competitive the world of publishing is. I sent my first draft to the Harper Collins and it was accepted. There wasn’t much editing either. Just the length was whittled down from 90,000 words to 70,000.”

Advaita wrote the book when she was between “jobs and places.…More