Man of a Thousand Chances

Selling Points:
• A very readable, fast-paced story about an ordinary middle-class man who takes an extreme step just to pay for his daughter’s wedding.
• Plays the very simple, recognizable world of Harihar Arora, with joint family politics and financial worries, against the beautiful, sophisticated world of classical Indian art and philosophy, and the high-stakes world of coin collection.
• A story that be enjoyed simply as a ‘howdunit’ – how a simple man commits a crime and what happens next, and how he is punished or escapes – as well as for the deeper philosophical questions it raises about karma.

About the Book :
Harihar Arora: second-generation north Indian in Madras, museum curator, indifferent husband, indulgent father – and thief. Desperate to meet his beloved daughter’s wedding expenses, the otherwise honest Harihar steals a rare gold coin minted by Mughal Emperor Jahangir and pawns it, with every intention of returning it after the wedding. But when he finds himself in a position to redeem it, he learns that it has been melted by the pawnbroker. What follows next forces Harihar to readdress his place in the world, and in his own marriage.
Beneath the deceptively simple surface of a story about an ordinary man in a rather extraordinary fix, are questions about the workings of karma, causality and the power of art, that offer profound matter for debate.

About the Author
Born in 1967 in Madras, Tulsi Badrinath has a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Stella Maris College and an MBA from Ohio University, Athens. Her poems, articles, reviews and short stories have appeared in various publications, including Namaste, the Little Magazine, Sruti, the Book Review, Indian Express, The Hindu, Deccan Herald and Deccan Chronicle. Meeting Lives, her first novel, was published by Niyogi Books in 2008. Man of a Thousand Chances is her second novel. Both novels were long listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2007 and 2008 respectively. From the age of eight, Tulsi learnt the classical dance form Bharatanatyam from her gurus The Dhananjayans, and as part of their troupe, danced at the Festival of India, USSR, 1987. She has performed solo widely in India and abroad.