The New Face in the Literary World- Sarita Mandanna - Diksha Pal Narayan

StarBuzz Weekly, Toronto-Sarita, a private equity professional, worked in the high-powered world of finance for most of her life. Sarita was born to a family from Coorg that loved reading and owned coffee plantations. She always knew somewhere in the back of her mind she always did belong there. It was the love of Coorg and curiosity of knowing more about her ancestors that led this numbers professional to try her hand with words. She not only wrote a novel, but also bagged the highest advance paid by Penguin India for a debut novel, even more than the likes of writer Amitav Ghosh!  Tiger Hills had been long listed for the 2010 Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize winning debut.

This novel spans over 5 decades where we follow a traditional family in Coorg. How the changes in the lead character’s life lead to tender moments, innocence lost and tragedies. A book that has been said to be “The Thorn Birds meets Gone With The Wind”, it truly is an Indian Epic. The novel plays with your emotions and captivates you.

Tiger Hills is a refreshing novel, it took 5 years to write but Sarita Mandanna did an excellent job, describing the lives of the 3 leading character’s - Devanna , Devi, and Machu a tiger hunter. The twists and turns in this novel keep you on your toes right till the last page.

At times you feel sympathetic towards Devanna. However, the story progresses in such a way that your emotions take a roller coaster ride. Devi’s beauty and arrogance is something constant in the book. Machu, the tiger hunter, has his trials and tribulations to deal with. No character in Tiger Hills is perfect, making these characters so much more human and real. Each one of them has their desires and ambitions; how they act on them at times and sometimes rise above their own benefit for doing the right thing is worth the read.

Some believe Devanna who had loved Devi all her life should’ve been forgiven a lot sooner than he was, while some believe he got what he deserved. You will find yourself in a dilemma wondering who suffered more, Devanna or Devi, and your heart will ache for one of them.

Coorg, dubbed as the Scotland of India, is a town that has a lot to offer to the tourist. Misty hills, lush forest, acres and acres of tea and coffee plantation, orange groves, undulating streets and breathtaking views are what make Coorg so important in Sarita’s novel. Coorg is the 4^th leading character of this novel. Coorg is on the Western Ghats, and is located in Karnataka's south-western end.

It was Seven years ago, after yet another long day at her Manhattan office where Mandanna wore her private equity professional cap, when she longed to do something creative. So what did she do? She logged on to her computer and started playing with words and soon ended up with six short stories staring at her from her computer screen. Sarita always wanted to have the story to be part of the place she considered special: her Coorg. Her family has lived there for several generations. Her deep association with the place gave a depth to this novel; its detailed and descriptive narration of Coorg is wonderful.
She says, “My father was a Colonel in the Indian Army, and the family moved every couple of years. In perhaps a balancing act to the displacement, Coorg began to loom ever larger, the core to my shifting world. We visited every year, and each time, that sense of coming to roost. That first rush of cool air as the road climbed suddenly higher. That watchful jungle silence. The familiar rows of coffee bushes, the kinetic sprawls of pepper vines. The backwaters, flashing silver through the trees. Home, once more.
If my day job uses one half of my brain - the logical, objective part of it, then writing must stem from its deeper, less controllable recesses. I always knew that I would write, and five years ago, began in earnest. If an author writes first about what he or she knows best, it was perhaps inevitable that Tiger Hills is the story that has first unruffled. Even as I was striking out in different directions, moving from place to place through these years, once I began to write, the wellspring that I struck lay at my core. I wanted to-had to- write about Coorg.”
Sarita is a graduate from IIM Bangalore. Her first job was as an investment banker at a multi-national bank in Mumbai. A few years later she landed a larger role with the mergers and acquisitions group of another multi-national bank in Hong Kong. Another move ensued, this time to Wharton Business School in Philadelphia where she graduated with an MBA in finance. She spent a few years in New York and later on moved to Toronto to be with her husband. Sarita is now researching a new novel.
She says, “Tiger Hills has been a while in the crafting and it has by no means been easy ride. I wrote however, and will continue to write because it is when I do that I am the most alive”.
 Sarita Mandanna’s Tiger Hills takes you on a ride, a trip to Coorg and the lives of characters that you’ll want to see through right till the last page.
Booklovers say hello to the newest Author making waves in the literary world. Sarita Mandanna is here to stay. Grab your copy of Tiger Hills today!