Via the Literary Saloon, an article in the Economic Times on the upcoming formal distribution of Harlequin Mills & Boon romance novels in India. These novels have of course been available in South Asia for many years — but mostly via redistribution and consignment. It’s only now that Harlequin is planning to start distributing its books in India directly:
For most Indian readers, it will come as a surprise that M&B was never actually distributed in India. The novels have been so much a part of our lives, stacked in the hundreds in circulating libraries, borrowed dozens at a time by women (especially in hostels, where the trick was for one girl to borrow them and ten to read them the same night), laid out for sale second hand on pavements.
We’ve seen the special sections in large bookshops, shelves aching with romantic desperation, anguish and fulfillment. We’ve fantasised about the busty heroines and tall dark handsome heroes on the covers. We knew about all the different varieties of novels: nurses, Regency, exotic settings and so on. And exactly how we knew all this we would never say since like most people we would never admit to reading M&B.
But all of this was achieved with Harlequin ever selling directly. “We had some idea about this market, but we never really followed it up,†admits Go. “At the Frankfurt Book Fair, we would meet Indian distributors who would offer to take on consignments and we never bothered beyond that.†(link)
Interestingly, Harlequin is finding that Indian men are just about as likely to be Mills and Boon fans as women:
What he wasn’t expecting were the men, “A substantial percentage of Mills & Boon readership in India is male! You don’t see that in other markets.†Go has speculations on why this is the case. Perhaps it’s just the sheer ubiquity of M&B novels, “Their sisters and mothers are reading them and since they are lying around the men read them too.†(link)
(Come on, desi guys — I know you’ve read a few of these. MoorNam? Floridian? Now is the time to come clean.)
Finally, the author of the piece asks an obvious question on my mind from the start — what about the desi version:
But the interesting question is whether, as with FMCG products, M&B will see the need to Indianise their offering. When even a Kentucky Fried Chicken has to offer a chicken curry thali to survive in India, will M&B be able to continue with its offering of Western-oriented romance fiction? Or is this sort of escapist fiction exactly its appeal? (link)
(“Tall, dark, and handsome” might have to become “fair and handsome” in the Indian context. And maybe they could still use Fabio on the cover, only with Shah Rukh Khan’s hair style?)
Incidentally, I have long wanted to write my own pulpy romance novel to make some quick cash, but I’ve been starved for a good (desi-oriented) plot. Can anyone suggest a good scenario for me to use, as I attempt to enter the world of trash fiction popular romantic fare? (The best I can think of right now is an Indian version of this plot. Hopefully I can come up with a better title than “The Rancher’s Doorstep Baby,” however)
Dude… the entire johar/chopra/barjatia oeuvre is harlequin. ve dont need no boon-shoon to tell us how to do the ishq.
Dude… the entire johar/chopra/barjatia oeuvre is harlequin. ve dont need no boon-shoon to tell us how to do the ishq.
I have a feeling, if you ask Karan Johar about his reading habits as a teenager, that he would have some Mills & Boon titles on the list…
Title “Two Pairs of Chuddiesâ€
New Orleans based Desi Lad embarks on a journey back to the motherland with only two pairs of chuddies. Never been there in his life, his folks keep telling him he is American now, forget the old ways we used to have. On his adventure he meets India’s first female F1 racing car champion recognized around the world, who is now embarking on a political career trying to make a better world. Instantly they fall in love but not without consequence, our desi lad is in for a bumpy Rickshaw ride, all while trying to find all sorts of ways to wash his chuddies.
Note: New Orleans because he walks to a timely beat. And if this thing ever gets a movie deal the soundtrack would be immense.
Khoofia’s right. In fact I’ve wondered if M&B stole ideas from circa ’80s Bollywood, sort of as covert vengeance for decades of Bappi Lahiri’s plagiarism. And ok fine, so I read my sister’s Harlequin romance pulp as a teen…a quick walk down 125th St in Harlem tells me I may have set a global trend for young black men 🙂
There’s an irony here. In Barjatya movies, basically everyone is so sweet to each other that everyone will get tooth decay and/or diabetes before the movie ends. However, everyone smiles at each other all the time, like they’re all in some toothpaste ad. See? Importance of dental hygiene. Be sweet and show some teeth.
/feel free to rhyme that last line of mine.
My question would be how they quantified the male readership.
This rationale seems like a bit of a stretch, no?: Their sisters and mothers are reading them and since they are lying around the men read them too.
Would a snarkier wit than mine like to take on the following paragraph from the original article? So much fodder here: Or perhaps it’s because in a culture where information on sex and romance wasn’t exactly in large supply, M&B novels were one available source. Perhaps it’s just that Indian men appreciate the good read that most M&B novels are. One thing’s for sure though, interesting as this segment is, Go will have his hands more than full in supplying Indian women to bother with the male romance market.
I will say up front that I read one, when I was I think 13 or 14. And that too only because my aunt once asked me if I read those and I frowned at her. She told me I was grown up enough to read those. I think it was because I was racking up the library bill at my grandma’s during the summer hols I spent there, by running through comics like a monkey left alone in with a fruit basket.
I have read many a M&B. Of course, it was unconsidered uncool to even talk about having read M&B. James Hadley Chase was considered cool – read a few of that too. Got beaten a few times for reading ‘kandravai’ ( my mother’s term) – Malayalam for trash
Anne Mather, Sigh!! Raviraj Lending Library, Madras…
I’ll go with the ‘romance novels are popular with men in India because of the lack of sexual outlets’ theory. Though things may have changed in recent years with the Internet, especially because I’m guessing that men who would be able to read these English-language novels are more likely to have access to the Internet than men who don’t. Plus Playboy and Hustler expanded to India, right? No longer do young Indian men/boys have to sneak out to ‘blue films’ under the guise of studying with Ramu.
I think there are also similarities between Indian mainstream film plots and romance novel plots when it comes to disturbing notions about gender relations, e.g. the ‘annoy her until she falls in love with you’/’forceful sex’ trope, but I guess the former is from a male perspective and the latter from a female perspective.
I have to agree with the ubiquity of it. As for coming clean, I wonder. I was I think about 12 or so and picked up a M&B my mom was reading,more out of curiosity than anything, I think I survived about 3 chapters and gave up on it, just found it too boring. And yes, I distinctly remember it was considered uncool to read M&B even at that age.
I doubt it. If indeed these novels are popular among the guys (which I am somehow not at all convinced about the truth of this article’s assertions – the ET is after all a ToI publication), then I would think a lack of sexual outlet would make Harold Robbins, Nancy Friday or magazines such as Debonair and even Mastram (for those who know) popular, not romantic trash such as M&B.
That would be more of a quintessential servant name than a buddy 🙂
Fair enough – I was just throwing a theory out there.
I was actually basing this idea on a cousin of mine who would do this… the ‘rascal’ in his peer group was a guy named Ramu. 🙂
Ardy, nothing to feel embarrassed about. It is very impressive that you could last as long as 3 whole chapters at that young age. Or maybe you were just an exceptional speed reader.
@ Mytri (#9)
Wooohooo! A fellow “Raviraj alum” on SM! A 15 year member, I am. He must have changed my membership number half a dozen times! Him and his heavy registers! 😀
Oh, it took them only about 55 years to discover the market. My 60 year old cousins were reading Mills and Boon as schoolgirls 45 years ago. Indian guys do read them; about the only peek into a woman’s love life for most until their mid-20s.
this is india of 2008. indian women dont read this stuff anymore! ha! and cookie brown, what indian men are you referring to–indian men whose only peek into a woman’s love life until their mid 20s(!!!) is M and B? this is laughable–where do you get this type of misinformation from? this isn’t 1950 , folks this is 2008!!! where do you get these ideas from? are you perhaps an ABD whose ideas of modern India are based on storied you hear from your parents and some old relatives? I don’t say this to be rude, but i am really curoius where some of you get your ideas of india from–you seem to be living in the past!! and you think young indians don’t have sex(!!!) young people are the same everywhere —indians just dont talk about it
somewhere that’s not the upper class of bombay or delhi.
Stick with the blog. Seriously. They’re not easy to write, they have the largest (least respected) but most quickly impressed or unimpressed readership, and the vast majority do not make Nora Roberts type money.
I never read M&B novels because my mom never had any. I used to read a lot of Femina though, cover to cover
Read about 4 or 5 of them. Popular English fiction in India as you grew up usually meant Enid Blyton’s ‘Famous Five’ and ‘Secret Seven’ series, Nancy Friday (usually for girls but boys read it too), Hardy Boys, James Hadley Chase, Mills & Boon for the girls, but boys read it too, Harold Robbins, Alistair MacLean, Sidney Shelton and so forth. There were others as well, but these were the most ubiquitous as I remember.
I read the Mills and Boons as and when my sister brought them from the library and it was not considered uncool to read them in the late seventies in small town, South India. All of these were a peek into a foreign culture and our first impressions of American and/or western culture.
young indians have sex – about the same % as the Victorians in the 1890’s.
extra-marital sex seems to be more common than pre-marital sex – dont know why.
17 · tarta said
I dont’ think this is restricted to upper class urbanites either. I heard the most gossip about who is doing it with whom and who is ready to elope with whom regularly in my grand mother’s village. Aren’t there enough folk songs on what happens in the ‘fields’? 🙂
I think the sexual repression only happens in lower-middle-class-town India. There aren’t many options to maintain privacy there. [Although melbournedesi seems to have found enough options to do away with privacy – Would Rahul be kind enough to embed nice links? 🙂 ] Isn’t it the middle-class dialogue to say “we don’t have money but we have our tradition/pride/name/respectability”?
As for M&B, I read about a dozen books when I was 15. They were sneaked out by my friend, whose aunt had a library of english books, in between Nancy Drew series. It was uncool to read M&B (especially while studying for EAMCET). Reading Jane Austen on the other hand, was very cool.
Couple of years ago, my sister found a place which sells the old editions by weight. So, she reads atleast one each week ! I am not sure if she is willing to buy pricier new ones.
It’s the loophole. Mommy and Daddy always tell you “No sex before marriage, beta!” but don’t tell you “Only sex with your wife!”
My mom told me that James Hadley Chase used to be big when she was growing up, and a recent movie, Johnny Gadaar (which is supposed to be quite good, from what I have heard) is partially a tribute to the Chase genre of novels. I also recall reading interviews of the “classy” actresses who would be described with something in the vein of, “She loves to read, you know. You can always find her on the sets glued to her copy of Harold Robbins.” or something to that effect. As an aside, you can see Sharmila Tagore reading Alistair Maclean (2:28) (“Where Eagles Dare”, I think) in the classic song “Mere Sapnon Ki Rani” from Aradhana.
I was in India when Sidney Sheldon died last year. To see the coverage on Indian news media and the number of people interviewed who expressed their heartfelt sorrow at the great loss, you would think it was a pillar of the literary establishment like Philip Roth or Naipaul that had kicked the bucket. The contrast was especially apparent since I first read about the news in the NY Times obituary, which had such classic lines as:
A Sidney Sheldon novel typically contains one or more — usually many more — of these ingredients: shockingly beautiful women, square-jawed heroes and fiendish villains; fame, fortune and intrigue; penthouses, villas and the jet travel these entail; plutonium, diamonds and a touch of botulism; rape, sodomy, murder and suicide; mysterious accidents and mysterious disappearances; an heiress or two; skeletons in lavishly appointed closets; shadowy international cartels, communists and lawyers; globe-trotting ambassadors, supermodels and very bad dogs; forced marriages and amnesia; naked ambition and nakedness in general; a great deal of vengeance; and as The New York Times Book Review described it in 1989, “a pastoral coed nude rubdown with dry leaves.â€
All my patronizing drivel aside, the exposure to high quality literature has seen a marked change and a huge leap since liberalization, and there is significant awareness and availability of books that have won awards (Booker etc.), are on the NY Times list, are by well-known authors etc., not just classics and popular bestsellers (Crichton, Forsyth, and so on). The only downside is that books are still expensive for a middle class wage, and libraries are not as plentiful or well-stocked as they are here.
Harlequin is still publishing romance novels? My mom used to read those in the 1980s! She would hide them in some creative places, can’t let the kids or husband find them. I found her stash when I was 13 and I read a few of them; when I got to the part about the relations, I would laugh at the flowery descriptions of the anatomy and the act itself.
How about a modern retelling of this classic tale, Amardeep? I used to work at a literary agency that specialized in romance novels. Get a draft together and I’ll introduce you to my old boss.
OMG I knew of Harlies by rep but hadnt read them. Just found an excerpt .. This is seamier than I expected and quite delicious actually. I love it. I am desifying it for you but I hope this will incite the youthful ardor and lead you to pen a passage that will melt my screen like garam garam jalebis.
KUNDI!!! 😀
How about a modern retelling of this classic tale, Amardeep? I used to work at a literary agency that specialized in romance novels. Get a draft together and I’ll introduce you to my old boss.
Harbeer, I don’t know — Gurinder Chadha has kind of ruined the idea of desi adaptations of that novel for a little while. (And Rajiv Menon, the Tamil director, also didn’t do anyone any good with his Tamil version, w/Aishwarya Rai)
I like where Khoofia is going with this. I’m thinking minimum work, maximum plagiarism for this project 😉
Umm did anyone read the short stories in Femina and Savvy in the 80’s. Wouldn’t those be like the desi M&B?
You seem to have as much a distorted picture, if not more. Its less than in the US (and way more hushed up, on top of that for obvious reasons), but quite significant from what I’ve seen – (no, I’ve never been to bombay or delhi and I’m not quite talking about the really rich/stylish/suave/cool/etc. folks either :P)
I think # 23 is partly right though not sure if the lower-middle-class town characterization is completely right either..
To add to M&B (ones that were in our library) – James Hadley Chase, Sidney Sheldon, etc. And yes, I never read any of them..;)
I have not met a single male cousin of mine who read Mills and Boon. Maybe some guys read that crap for kicks, who knows. But the title of the linked article is misleading – MOST INDIAN MEN??? I don’t think so. I did catch one of my cousins with Debonairs under his bed. Another cousin of mine(an ABD like me who also lived in India) brought a bunch of Playboy, Mayfairs(I guess he picked them up at the London airport), Penthouses and hid them in one of his drawers.
Now Sidney sheldon and Harold Robbins, I remember those names as being much more popular in India. And I don’t think people even watched I Dream of Jeannie over there. Hheh. I browsed through part of one Sheldon book. What a bunch of crap.
I did enjoy the Tintin and Asterix comics. I read a few Tintin while in the US but I learned about Asterix only after I went to India. Oh, another interesting thing I noticed among some of my classmated over there. Some would actually read the comics out loud like they were memorizing something in their textbooks.
khoofia is seriously on to something here. The only time I’d read a Harlequin romance is if khoofia got a hold of it first with his red pen and turned it ghoofia! You could call it modern art, my friend. What the hell, Crispin Glover did it. Take the show on the road, get some underfed/paid actors to do scenes from Harliquoofia– tape it, put it on youtube and don’t forget who loves ya’!
you think young indians don’t have sex(!!!) young people are the same everywhere —indians just dont talk about it
Where is Razib and his stats when we need them.
My friends and I were quite partial to Denise Robbins in high school in Desh.
I found a couple of M&B in my aunt’s house in India. Something about a Greek Olympic swimmer and a girl in a casino. He was treating her very badly when my (younger, male) cousin walked into the room. ‘Oh you found them. which one are you reading.’ I yelled at him for interrupting and he flounced out of the room. I have doubts about him. He’s still not married and I think he’s holding out for Demetri.
Oi!… Crispin Hellion Glover is a flattering comparison !NOT. sniff My talent would veer towards something like this
🙂
No comparison. I’m just saying if he can get away with it – so can you. The world needs more trippy khoofia thoughts.
Indian men are brought up fed on a steady diet of slushy, soppy, maudlin romances through movies. That coupled with the fact they don’t have girlfriends, or any emotional or physical contact with the opposite sex until they get married, makes them as susceptible to mind-numbing romance novels as a high school girl. Come on, do you really need a plot? Girl, boy, meet, girl hates boy initially, but falls in love with his naughty charm eventually. His parents object. Add a few goons to the mix (led by her brother maybe). In the end bad guys repent, girl marries boy, and vacation in Switzerland.
If they have done market research, maybe they are on to something, but I don’t know any desi guys who read Mills & Boon (not that there’s anything wrong with that 😉 ).
ok – fair enough. i know that it goes on among all classes and that people don’t talk about (especially the middle class), it’s just that tarta has a history of comments along the line of, ‘you ABDs with your foolish outdated notions of india that you must be getting from your parents!’ i know a LOT of DBDs who work in IT, and the vast majority of them fit into the ‘don’t really talk to girls until they start looking for a wife in their mid-20s’ mold. it’s obvious that things are changing in india, but not quite enough for india to be shining just yet. comments like tarta’s just seem to me like they’re denying reality – if there isn’t a market for these novels, then why are they actively being catered to now? i’d hope the company wouldn’t be that stupid, to go after a market that isn’t there.
IT folks are an outlier. Nala – you are right and so is Tarta. Even in the early 90’s some young people (<20) got to third base. Of course a lot less than now. Also, conversations about sex was rather hush-hush. As someone who has been active for 15+ years now, the difference in the confidence of the women is striking and quite welcome. In the 90’s it was often in the context of eternal love hopefully culminating in marriage. In Tamil movies there was a code for sex – something on the lines of ‘will our love be consummated’.
Or Husband. Very true. Never thought about it on those lines. Many women in India seem to flower post marriage…. and more willing to experiment.
On the subject of sex, my uncle is a neurologist and a lot of his patients are people who have had nervous breakdowns as a result of stress by way of having pre-marital/extramarital affairs.
I’ve never read Mills&Boon and I’ve only peeked in a couple of Harlequins. But I shamefacedly admit that Victoria Holt/Jean Plaidy’s historical romance novels were pretty well read by me when I was 13 or so. Oh, and there was my favourite, that super-sexy novel about Queen(?) Mathilda of England and Stephen. I don’t think I learned much of history from that book though…not that it contained much…
To clarify, he practices in India and his patients are people from all classes.
ok – but it’s one of the growing industries that plays a major part in how the indian middle class is expanding, right?
i’d be interested in more scientific studies of indian people’s sexual habits. and i don’t just mean you, melbourne desi.
Duty calls.
If there are any impressionable 12 or 13 year olds reading this blog, may this elder brother humbly suggest pp. 120, 247-8, 362-3, 366-7, 392, 396-7, and 407 of The Day of the Jackal? Not that I thumbed those pages a million times or anything, but my only excuse is that Moonlight turns even the most civilised man into a primitive.
mate so would I. Something on the lines of Kinsey.
42 · nala said
with many bidesi desis, they reinforce this idea as a pysycological defense against their own inability to do the same. talk to girls: you mean chat up the girls right?