The Great Indian Adulting Manual: A Comedy of Errors

Finally, the instruction manual nobody asked for but everyone desperately needs.

Remember when you thought adults had everything figured out? That somewhere around the age of twenty-five, a wise elder would hand you a leather-bound guide titled "Congratulations, You're Now Responsible for Your Own Existence"?

Well, that manual doesn't exist. And if it did, it would probably be written in Sanskrit by someone who thinks WhatsApp is a new yoga pose.

From the author of acclaimed works including From Freebies to Factories, India at the Crossroads, and Beyond Thought, comes a brutally honest and hilariously observant guide to the beautiful disaster that is modern Indian adult life.

Shyam Mudireddy takes you on a laugh-out-loud journey through the maze of Indian adulting—from surviving the education system that prepared you for everything except actual life, to navigating family WhatsApp groups where uncles share "breaking news" and aunties debate vegetables prices with the intensity of UN peace negotiations.

This isn't your typical self-help book promising life-changing insights and actionable advice. This is more like a survival guide written by someone who's still figuring out how to survive, which makes it infinitely more honest and useful than most adulting literature.

Discover the truth about:
• Why engineering college taught you calculus but not how to file taxes
• The elaborate theater of Indian marriage planning (spoiler: it's not about the couple)
• How family festivals transform mild-mannered uncles into nagin dance experts
• The mysterious economics of Indian middle-class life
• Why everyone at office meetings is pretending to understand what's happening

Written with sharp British wit and populated with characters you'll recognize from your own life—the uncle who's an expert on everything, the aunty with strong opinions about your life choices, the cousin who's somehow doing better than you despite making questionable decisions—this book captures the universal experience of adult confusion through a distinctly Indian lens.

Whether you're struggling to understand why your mother thinks you're starving if you weigh less than a small elephant, trying to decode the politics of office lunch sharing, or wondering why no one explained that "settling down" would involve so much paperwork, this book will make you laugh while reminding you that everyone else is just as confused as you are.

The Great Indian Adulting Manual proves that the best way to handle the chaos of grown-up life is to embrace it with humor, honesty, and the comforting knowledge that we're all just making it up as we go along.

Perfect for anyone who's ever felt like they're failing at being an adult—which is basically everyone.