Keep The Change

B. Damayanthi is held back by a name she finds hopelessly uncool, a string of unsuitable prospective husbands put forward by her Amma, a going-nowhere accountancy job at a run-down firm, and the stifling atmosphere of Chennai. When she finally quits and takes a job at a bank in Mumbai, Amma's farewell advice is to be good and not do anything silly, which Damayanthi translates as a warning to avoid sex and alcohol.

In Mumbai she has to find her way through cutthroat corporate offices and big-city life. The cherub-faced Jimmy hands out dubious wisdom. She must win over C.G., an intellectual who thinks little of her, and fight flatmate Sonya Sood, a size-zero sophisticate, for control of the TV remote. The seductive Rahul tests her willpower, and a moral dilemma arrives when she is tempted to 'steal' a million-dollar idea for her project.

Underneath it all are the questions of whether a good girl can have a really good time and whether a conservative, curd-rice-eating woman can become a cool corporate babe. The novel is a lively, sharply funny story of a young woman working out her dreams and her own place in the world.