They have long been criticised for being primitive, of perpetuating submissiveness and misogyny, of glorifying male chauvinism and have even been blamed for failed relationships. To generations of readers, the 106-year-old Mills & Boon’s is a familiar plot in which pretty heroine falls for tall, dark and brooding Mr Handsome who takes his own sweet time to reciprocate. But the books have their defenders, the defence running the gamut from “it’s just fiction” to “it’s actually quite feminist”.

Neeru Suri Sachdeva, who used to devour M&Bs in her teens and twenties, no longer looks out for them 20 years later. She is not even aware of the Indian ones. She doesn’t agree that the romances were all bad, though. She enjoyed reading the descriptions of places abroad and now with the Internet, can visualise them even better. With Indian fiction in English burgeoning in all categories, including chick lit and romance, she wonders why the M&B brand would be important any more.

But Amrita Chowdhury, Country Head & Publishing Director of Harlequin India, which owns the Mills & Boon brand, says it has done really well in evolving with the times. The heroine is a working girl, has good friends and falls in love. The man is “no longer boorish or autocratic – he is very accepting of the woman as an equal and a peer, and there is much fun and friendly banter”.

There are M&Bs and there is chick-lit, and today’s M&Bs have built a bridge between the two, says Chowdhury. The Indian authors include bankers, dentists, PR executives, doctors, and the characters themselves reflect the authors, she adds. There is “ample Indian reality” too, in these Indian versions – there is a lot more of friends and family, unlike in the global books where decisions are made independently. The settings are Indian and “the viewpoint is one of evolving India, evolving man and woman”, says Chowdhury.

Opinion is mixed among readers that BrandLine spoke to. Avid reader Susan Alexander says the books did not appeal to her because they seemed to reinforce traditional stereotypes of what India and Indians are like. More interestingly, though, it emerged that very few of them were aware of the Indian books. How is the company going about Indianising a brand that has often been seen as soft porn? How, for instance, does it deal with issues such as premarital sex, live-in relationships and other changing social norms?

Books are a reflection of society and its trends, says Chowdhury. She links it to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. After food, clothing and shelter, the next basic human need is that for belonging - to be cherished and loved. “M&B books are actually addressing that need, which is deeper and more elemental than pure sex,” she says.

Going local

Chowdhury, who joined Harlequin about a year ago, is an author herself. Her book, Faking It (Hachette 2009) is a novel about art forgery. One of her major responsibilities at Harlequin is to grow the Indian authors and desi romances project. What started out as a competition held by the publisher in 2009 to select one local author has now resulted in over 12 of them, and some have published more than one book. Milan Vohra, who wrote The Love Asana , was the first. Shoma Narayanan’s fourth M&B will be published this month. She is a global author whose books have been printed in English in the UK, the US, Australia and Germany, and translated into Italian.

The contest continues every year, for M&B and general fiction under the Harlequin label which has three imprints in India, but “there is more direct publishing. We can’t rely on just competition as we ramp up”. Men submit entries as well, says Chowdhury, pointing out that globally, there have been many male authors in the portfolio. Roger ‘Gill’ Sanderson is one. For that matter, India now has its own nascent crop of male romance writers such as Ravinder Singh ( I Too Had a Love Story ), Durjoy Datta ( She Broke Up, I Didn’t ), Sachin Garg ( Never Let Me Go ) and Faraaz Kazi ( Truly Madly Deeply ) whose Wikipedia page says he is called the Nicholas Sparks of India.

In 2014, Harlequin aims to test and acquire some books in Tamil. Global books are being translated into Indian languages. And to further bring the brand closer to Indian hearts, Harlequin even conducts an annual model hunt to illustrate the covers of the novels. The bulk of Harlequin’s business comes from the global titles, but the Indian authors sell more per title, perhaps because readers can identify with the characters more, says Chowdhury. Among readers who span women aged 18-60, the typical M&B reader would most likely be an educated girl in her mid-twenties, most likely a working woman both from the metros as well as smaller towns.

It’s an interesting time for the publishing industry, says Chowdhury. Traditional retail is under pressure, e-retailers are growing, e-books are hopefully waiting to take off and reading itself is challenged by other options for entertainment such as television, films, social media and gaming. Readers are growing, but not in proportion to the size of the Indian population. That said, some books are managing to carve their niche and find large reader bases, indicating that there is great potential in the market. One can only make a reasonable guess as to that. The lack of point-of-sales data hampers a clear understanding of the publishing industry. Less than 50 per cent of the market is in organised retail and e-commerce. According to AC Nielsen Book Data Report, January-March 2013, adult fiction has noted a sale of about 36 per cent, non-fiction has 44 per cent and children, young adult and education has 16 per cent total sales in that quarter.

Chowdhury promises an exciting line-up of Indian romances from Harlequin. For other Harlequin books, the landscape of the novel is broader, they could be dramas, thrillers, chick-lit, coming of age stories and even non-fiction. In M&B though, some of the latest are The Indian Tycoon’s Marriage Deal , Aditie Banerjee’s romance featuring a landscape developer and a real estate businessman, and His Captive Indian Princess , Tanu Jain’s book which Chowdhury describes as a “searing romance” between a young lawyer and her childhood pal.

Is there a novel in Chowdhury herself? She’s not sure but says there may be something in the thriller genre next year.

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