MAKING HER DEBUT
Rajal Pitroda's first novel Starstruck is centred around the Bollywood industry. The summary says: "Sapna Shah is starstruck. Be it the red carpet or a Hindi movie, there is nothing she loves more than spending hour after hour dreaming about the film world, picturing herself in designer gowns, having visions of lovers dancing hand in hand in exotic locales. She soon gets her chance to see all this for real when she goes from New York to Mumbai on a magazine assignment and ends up rubbing more than just shoulders with Bollywood's it-producer Gautam Gupta. Sapna spends the next few weeks searching for fallen eyelashes in actress Zeina Khan's kohl-lined green eyes, hiding the not-so-discreet evidence of handsome hero Karan Kumar's multiple affairs and trying to protect fragile megastar Aradhna Roy from anything that might upset her. But when the mysterious death of a co-worker compels Sapna to look beyond Bollywood's fairytale empire and into the depths of Mumbai's notorious underworld mafia, she realises that there is more to the movies than just song and dance." The American-born Pitroda has been involved in promoting the Indian film industry. She lives in Los Angeles. For more details, see here.