“People grow up at their own pace. Some have the misfortune of missing their childhoods and grow up sooner than their time. While some take their own sweet time to reach a certain mental age where they might have reached chronologically and physically a long time ago.”
Life is rosy at twenty-five, with love in the air and red-hot ambition flowing through the veins. Or is it?
Ask twenty-five-year-old Enakshi Chatterji, who is uprooted from Delhi and sent to Chennai to work as an intern in the fiercely competitive and heavily male-dominated territory of sales with no place for a city-bred sophisticated girl. Add to that the fact that she doesn’t speak a word of Tamil, and you get a heady cocktail of events that promises to take you on a rollercoaster ride.
When a twenty-five-year-old family secret comes back to haunt her, she starts on a course of self-destruction with a weekend getaway with her stalker, a movie date with her boss and a quest to uncover an old family secret. Will Enakshi be able to battle all the sexual advances, language barriers, male chauvinism, hygiene complications and the scorching Chennai sun, and emerge victorious? Will she finally unearth the truth about her mother?
Having read some of Aashisha Chakraborty’s writing, I know she has a knack for telling stories that draw you into its web. Her debut novel brings the same conviction.
For a germophobe who is forever living in fear of contracting an infection, to be sent to work in a city that’s unbearably hot, requires you to be on the road for most of the day, and whose language is nothing but noise to you, there couldn’t be a more severe punishment. What makes it worse is when she learns her batchmates are living it up with fun offsites and glamourous lunches while she is praying to just make it through the day in one piece.
Inspired from her personal experiences, Chakraborty takes you on a crazy journey wherein her protagonist, Enakshi, attempts to find her footing on the first rung of the corporate ladder. While her internship in Sales at a major telecom company is driven by targets, growth rates and the dreaded sales beat, she must also prove herself in this male dominated territory.
Mis(s) Adventures of a Sales Girl is exactly as the title (which I thought was a fantastic play of words) suggests. Following a frustratingly repetitive routine, Enakshi grows to realise the challenges of being on the service-providing end which makes her more empathetic to others like her while also training her to become a better judge of character.
The underlying tension with her mother, which she carries to Chennai, brings an unusual element of suspense. Rising from a secret she has only heard whispers of but is determined to uncover, her certitude hands her more than she bargained for.
Enakshi’s mis(s) adventures include a realistic mix of comedy multiplied by corporate humour, romance, and suspense. A hilarious coming-of-age story, this is bound to be enjoyed by those having just taken their first steps outside the cocoon of comfort and familiarity, or preparing to step out.
Mis(s) Adventures of a Sales Girl by Aashisha Chakraborty. Published in September 2022 by Rupa Publications. This review copy courtesy of the author.
Book 38 of 2022.
Aquamarine Flavours Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟.
Available on Amazon*.
Aashisha was chosen as one of the 75 pan-India authors under 30 for the PM-YUVA scheme for her historical fiction work with National Book Trust, India. She was the winner of the Times of India Write India Season 2 for Shobhaa De and among the top six for both Manu Joseph and Twinkle Khanna. She has written for various Readomania anthologies and ebooks by Women’s Web and InsideIIM. Her articles have appeared in The Hindu and she has a Star Wars fan fiction column on SilverLeaf Poetry. A winner of Kaafiya (the Delhi Poetry Festival), she showcases her short stories on Readomania Premium. An MBA from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi, and a computer engineer from Jamia Millia Islamia, she reads and travels compulsively, and blogs on her online diary of sorts—The Mind Bin.
You can reach out to her via linktr.ee/the_mind_bin.
*Disclosure: This post contains an affiliate link which means, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.
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