Name: Anuja Chauhan
Age: 46
No. of books: 5
Total copies sold: 200,000-plus
Biggest seller: Those Pricey Thakur Girls
Latest title: Baaz
Also known for: Iconic ads like Yeh dil maange more for
Pepsi, Darr ke aage jeet hai for Mountain Dew

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Samhita Chakraborty (Team t2): You’ve called yourself an ‘army brat’... so, did you always know that you would write a novel on the armed forces?
Anuja: I did want to write it at some point but Baaz (published by HarperCollins India, Rs 399) ended up being my fifth book because I thought it needed a lot of work, and I did not feel ready enough. And, you know, when it’s something as serious as your dad’s job, it seems very grown up and very daunting to tackle.  

Samhita: How did the story of Baaz come about?
You know, I had two uncles in the air force — real larger-than-life characters, the coolest people. Very handsome men with big moustaches and broad shoulders and they used to be so cool, sometimes they would fly their planes really low over our house, just to freak my sisters out... and those kind of people stay in your head. I think that’s one big influence. 

The other thing was, you keep looking for subjects to write on and something that is relatively unexplored, so I wrote about cricket (The Zoya Factor) and I wrote about politics (Battle For Bittora) and various other topics, and to me it felt like the air force was sort of neglected, despite how cool it is. It is neglected even in popular culture, be it movies or books... they all focus on the army. I find the persona of air force guys amazing.... Plus, this whole cockpit mentality that they recruit for, it’s so fascinating. I had quite a crush on air force guys, I think, so it came from there.

Zeba Akhtar (Team t2): From Zoya to Jinni to Dabbu, all your books have had strong female characters. What made you shift to Ishaan Faujdaar (Shaanu) when it came to Baaz?
Oh, but I think Tinka is also a pretty strong character (in Baaz). What you’re asking is about me going to the boy’s point of view, right? So, in The Zoya Factor, it is all about Zoya, and Nikhil Khoda is just there, going, ‘I want to win the World Cup’ (chuckles). There isn’t anything more to him. With Zain in Battle For Bittora, I started adding a little bit, because I was like, the man has traits, he’s not just an object, so let me get into his head a little. I think with each book, I started getting more and more into the male point of view. With Those Pricey Thakur Girls and The House That BJ Built, it was actually third-person narrative, which allowed me to really get into their heads, because earlier I was hampered by the fact that it’s Jinni’s or Zoya’s point of view. I can see what she can see, and for what she can’t see, I have to resort to stuff like newspaper reports and things like that. Once I got into it, it was so much fun, I loved writing Dylan (in Those Pricey Thakur Girls), he has brothers and his mother worries about him so much and I think it was really cute to see that part of the guy, besides the romantic angle. 

So, with Shaanu, I was ready. And I think he is a really compelling character, because he totally took over the book! I started writing from both points of views, Shaanu’s as well as Tinka’s. If you see the first few chapters, they’re equally divided, then Ishaan just took over. 

Zeba: What kind of research went into writing Baaz? Must have been a lot...
Yeah, it was a lot, actually. But I had a lot of help and a lot of people very willing to help me. Lots of officers and retired gentlemen who were fighters back in the day and who were now 80-plus were like, ‘Haan beta aa jao hamaare ghar’, and then we’re chatting over whisky-paani, they’re showing me pictures of their families and stuff. 

The memories they had were so fresh! When they would describe it, it all seemed like it happened yesterday... and they were so excited. We would be sitting at the dining table and they would take a big cushion, place it before us and say, ‘Yeh Lal Qila hai’, and it was like the whole thing was happening in front of me! They were great. 

I also read a lot of military non-fiction. Eagles Over Bangladesh (by P.V.S. Jagan Mohan and Samir Chopra) was a very good book on the role of the Indian Air Force on this (eastern) side, then I read India’s Wars: A Military History (by Arjun Subramaniam), and some Ramachandra Guha for background. Then I spoke to a lot of army wives, and some current fighters as well, the young boys. Plus, I had my childhood memories and my two uncles came down and stayed with me for a long time, and we went through many bottles of Johnnie Walker (laughs out loud). 

Anannya Sarkar (Team t2): If Baaz was made into a movie who would you pick for Ishaan?
At the moment, out of the current lot of boys, Varun Dhawan shines the brightest to me for this role, although I like a lot of the new boys. 

Priyanka Roy (Team t2): Why Varun? What do you think he has that makes you pick him?
Varun is small and cocky (bursts out laughing)! I think he has that mix of vulnerability and cockiness, which Ishaan really needs. There are lots of other boys who are so good. Like Ranveer Singh is fabulous, but he’s just not Baaz. He’s Nikhil Khoda, maybe. If men who were older today had been younger, then a few of them would fit the bill too. Like Salman Khan or Aamir Khan, or Farhan Akhtar. They have that thing as well. But Ishaan is 24 years old, so I’ll pick Varun.

Priyanka: Aamir would love to play 24....
(Laughs) I think Aamir would love to play 18 as well! Didn’t he just pull it off a couple of years ago?

Anannya: Moving to your style of writing, in all your books, you have used a mix of English and Hindi, was that a conscious decision? 
See, I think everybody talks like this, in a mixture of English and Hindi, I think it’s the most authentic and natural way for us to talk. If you do not talk like that, you start sounding stilted, your conversation does not flow. So, that was the call. Everybody does it. I mean, Salman Rushdie has been writing in Hinglish ever since he started writing. It’s just the way he writes and it is beautiful. Of course, normal people cannot write like that, but I don’t think it’s something new that I have invented, it’s totally there. In advertising, I have been writing Hinglish for 17 years. So, for me it sounds natural and not writing like that would seem wrong. There seems to be the notion that you won’t sell international copies, that you will lose out on an international audience. I’m thinking 1.3 billion Indians and procreating every day, I’ll manage, I will make money selling here (giggles).

Priyanka: If we go back a little, you had such a successful career in advertising, and you’ve been in it for 17 years, so was there like this moment of epiphany when you thought... I won’t write lines anymore, I’m going to write a novel, or did you always know that you would write a book?
I can pretty much track it to the day. You know, in Pepsi it was like a religion. WE are Pepsi! THEY are Coke... and we are at WAR! And this is very important. The whole world is waiting to see my ad... all in my own head, in reality, nobody gives a damn (starts laughing). 

So we’re shooting in BKC (Bandra Kurla Complex) in Bombay with Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan and at the same time with Suriya and Madhavan; we’re shooting the north Indian as well as south Indian versions together. We have directors, we have 300 extras, Farah Khan is choreographing... and it’s like some crazy thing going on, dhoop jaa rahi hai, light is fading, client is screaming and I just felt so out of control. You know, it’s like I am controlling nothing at all, it’s my script, I wrote it on my pad and now it’s just so crazy. I was shaking from the stress of it all. 

So, I went back to the hotel and took out my laptop. Luckily, I had just gotten a promotion, so I had a laptop for the first time in my life. I opened it and I was like I will write a book. If I have to kill someone, I will kill someone! I will cast who I want, no budget, no sunshine, no deadline. 

Priyanka: And you’ve not regretted it ever since?
(Smiles) I have no regrets. I mean, I love what I do and I love advertising also, and it’s nice to go back now and then, but this is great, I love this. 

Priyanka: Of course Pepsi and Yeh dil maange more have become synonymous with you, so is there any commercial that’s made you go yeh dil maange more recently?
I have to jog my memory now. I have become very good at avoiding ads these days (laughs). I think we all have, we’re all binge-watching these days. 

Priyanka: Oh, you do that too? You don’t feel bad about skipping ads on the Internet? 
(Continues laughing) No! Not at all. It’s like when people’s children cry, now that my own kids have grown up, I’m like ‘Bachche ko sambhalo!’ So it’s that mentality. If you tell me about a few ads, maybe I’d be able to choose. 

Team t2: The Vodafone ads, the Tanishq ads... 
Nowadays I see ads that just really irritate me. There’s some weird Bata ad, I don’t know if it’s a feminist ad.... It basically says that if you are screwed up in life then go and buy shoes, but it’s saying that in a very feminist way. I feel nowadays advertising is trying to have a social conscience... back in the day we used to just say, ‘Drink Pepsi, yaar’, and that was that. I think that this quest to be meaningful is having very mixed results. Sometimes, they come up with really cringeworthy stuff.

Priyanka: Also, there used to be so many iconic jingles, say for example, the Bajaj ad, but now we do not have any...
I think that’s also because there was only one channel and we had no other choice but to watch the Bajaj ad (laughs). 

Samhita: Tinka’s ad in Baaz is obviously based on the iconic Liril ad... was that like your ode to your advertising days?
With Tinka, I just felt that Ishaan... I do not know how politically correct this sounds... but I just felt that I wanted him to have like a real trophy girlfriend. I wanted her to be very fabulous. In the sense that someone like Ishaan, someone from Chakkahera, this small boy from a small place who cannot even speak English very well, I wanted him to like aankh utha ke look at the sexiest girl there was. And I thought that this ad with the waterfall, it was as iconic as it could get, in the early ’70s. But there’s a slight cheat, the ad came out in 1975, the story is set a few years before that... so thoda sa cheating kiya maine. 

Priyanka: Is there a bit of you, or a lot of you, in the women that you write? 
So see, all the women that I write are me, my sisters, my aunts, my girlfriends, my cousins, my daughters, my nieces, girls I meet. I take a lot from life, and it helps me and I think it makes it more authentic, since fact is always cooler than fiction and what you find there, you won’t find anywhere else. So I do that... I can even put you girls in (points to the t2 girls). 

Priyanka: One of your books has been made into a TV show, Dilli Wali Thakur Girls. (From the raised eyebrow we gather that Anuja does NOT approve of this adaptation.) If any of your other books was made into a movie, which one would you want first?
I’ll tell you what it is. The Zoya Factor was purchased by Red Chillies Entertainments and they had it for two years, and then the rights reverted to me, so I sold them to Pooja Shetty Deora of Walkwater Films. She has assured me as recently as a week ago that they will start shooting in December. I take that with a pinch of salt. Battle For Bittora is with Anil Kapoor Film Company and Sonam Kapoor is playing Jinni... I do not know who else is playing anything else. 

Priyanka: Fawad Khan was supposed to play Zain... 
Now Fawad looks slightly dicey, so no Fawad (looks just as sad as the t2 girls). And, that’s that. For Baaz, as of now, very exciting conversations are going on, lots of studios want it, so it’s really exciting. I am getting this very swayamvar type feeling (grins).

Zeba: Do you get writer’s block? 
Anuja: My theory is that writer’s block is the denial to admit that you need to delete. My books are usually one lakh and six to seven thousand words, which means I write almost a thousand words a day... then dheere dheere I will get to 30,000 words and I start feeling ki yeah, there is an end to the tunnel! Then when you’re at some 40,000 words, you realise that you have barked up the wrong tree, and the only way out is to come back to the story and for that you have to delete. But you can’t delete. It’s blood, sweat and tears and I don’t think you’re ready to delete... so you delay it and you think I am stuck and you think that maybe I will find a way around it, and you do all sorts of things when actually at the back of your head you know that isko mereko kaat ke phenkna parega. While I am wandering around doing other things, like shampooing my dogs, or painting a room, slowly I will realise that this is what I should be doing. Once I know what will be the new direction, that gives me the courage to delete the old stuff. 

Zeba: What do your kids feel about your writing?
When I wrote The Zoya Factor (in 2008), only my elder daughter could read it. Now, all my kids read my books, and everybody has a lot of feedback. They’re very opinionated and very critical. Their biggest comment is, ‘Please don’t make the girl irritating!’ Now they’re quite grown up, and they are pretty intelligent children. My elder daughter (Niharika Margaret) is a journalist, my middle one (Nayantara Violet) is doing political science at Ashoka University, and my son (Daivik John) is in Class XI. They have pretty mature feedback, you know. So, I take it. Advertising ne mereko sikha diya hai ki feedback toh lete raho because there toh every day some client is saying something…. 

Mayank Agarwal (student of Jaipuria College and t2 contest winner): What was the experience of publishing your first book?
It was quite exciting, of course…. But it was quite simple. I thought bahut bari struggle hogi… but I had written the whole book, so I had a complete manuscript. I went to one photostat ka dukaan and made copies. I spent the whole day... pehle unki ink khatam hui, phir paper khatam hua, phir batti gayi (chuckles). I was so proud! I gave one copy to Hay House and one to HarperCollins India. Then I went to shoot a Kurkure ad with Juhi Chawla and Shaad Ali. My phone was dead and I messaged Shaad’s number and HarperCollins called and said, ‘We like it’. 

Of course I got no money… I was so grateful ki meri kitaab chhap rahi hai. Kuch nahin poochha maine, sab sign kar diya. Now I have become so smart, but then I was so grateful. Besides, I was earning, right? But still SO exciting to be published…. 

It had become embarrassing also, na… people would say, ‘Tumne toh teen mahine ki chhutti li thi for writing a book, kya hua?’ Even Shah Rukh I had told that I am writing a book, and he said, ‘I’ll make a movie on it’. So then he was like, ‘Where’s your book?’ I was under a lot of pressure. Sometimes it’s good to tell people (laughs). Don’t make it such a secret that no one can nag or taana maro you. 

Mayank: Did you ever consider writing under a pseudonym?
I did, actually. I have all these wild fantasies. When I look at these men... who are at the top of the Nielsen list, I am like, ‘Main bhi likhungi’. I have forgotten my pseudonym… it was really good... Pari Sharma or something, and I said, ‘I am going to write one of those....’

Samhita: What, erotica?
No! Metro Reads… like I will blow away all these boys! So that’s my little fantasy... I’ll write this book and it will be Number One (laughs). But I think there’s more to it and I shouldn’t disparage the effort they put in or any particular talent they have. But sometimes I think yeah, maybe I should just write in another name and write something I could finish in three months for lots of money. So that’s my dirty fantasy (grins).

But it’s just damn humbling, you know. I have been on panels with these boys and I remember one panel with Ravinder (Singh) and I was like, ‘Wah! Ravinder ki toh maine le li. I am talking so well and I am answering all the questions. I am so cool!’ The session got over and there was like a horde of women and they ran me over! Like, have you seen when Mufasa dies in The Lion King? So I told myself, ‘Okay now go and sit quietly in your place’.

Priyanka: Do you read them? 
I have read Chetan’s (Bhagat) books, two. Then I have read The Immortals of Meluha (by Amish). Durjoy (Datta), I started reading one, we were together at some session and so I started reading it and I read a fair deal and it seemed nice. But I didn’t finish it because it was someone else’s copy and they took it back. I want to read them, really. There’s this other Bengali boy, no? What’s his name? 

Samhita: Novoneel Chakraborty?
(Nods yes) What ratings, ya! So, I guess… I have to read them. I will. 

Priyanka: Why do you think there are no women writers in that space?
No, no. There’s Savi Sharma, Preeti Shenoy. Preeti I have read. Savi, I haven’t. 

Vedanshi Tulshyan (student of Bhawanipur College and t2 contest winner): I have heard about Savi. She dropped out of her CA course and wrote a book! 
So clearly there’s something there, you know. I can’t grasp it. But I think everyone writes from where they’re coming from and your experiences are different, and so your writings are different. And people relate to you because of what you have been through and a lot of them deal with a lot of pain and all… So I have been quite blessed (touches wood) in that sense, I don’t have so many painful experiences in my life. 

Vedanshi: Your favourite book and your favourite author?
I have got lots, in different genres. Like, in the romcom kind of space, I love Meg Cabot. She is such fun. And I love Georgette Heyer, who is very old-school. I really like Anne of Green Gables, as well as all those girly books — Little Women.... Pride and Prejudice I am not such a fan of, but whatever. And I like black humour — Catch-22 is so funny. People are dying everywhere and such horrible things are happening but it’s so funny. I love Joseph Heller. I think he’s really good. And in the humour space, I like Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, then in the Indian space, I really like Vikram Seth. Out of Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy is my best because it’s such a good book and so layered... kahin se bhi uthake kholo, it’s great fun. 

Samhita: Are you waiting for its sequel, ‘A Suitable Girl’?
I have stopped waiting. I have read The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (by Arundhati Roy) and now I am not waiting for anything! I’ll just read A Suitable Boy again. 

Priyanka: Do you read non-fiction?
It depends. I have read a lot of military non-fiction. I want to read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (by Yuval Noah Harari)… my daughter just gave it to me. But I am drawn to fiction. When I read non-fiction, I feel very virtuous. It feels like someone should give me a trophy (laughs). 

Anannya: Do you Google yourself?
Ya, ya. Especially if I have a new book out. It’s like a disease. Now that it’s two months, I have stopped. But the first month, I am a manic. 

Anannya: And do you take reviews in your stride?
Mostly I get good reviews ya! Why are you saying ‘Take in your stride?’ I don’t get that many negative reviews (laughs). For my advertising, I get lots but not for my books. 

Priyanka: Are you on Netflix?
Yes. But I like desi stuff as well. I enjoyed Permanent Roommates, then this friend of mine made Ladies Room.… I like web series. And I don’t know what to watch on TV anymore.... There are these naagin kind of things and then there are these bhagwaan kind of things and meanwhile STAR Plus is saying ‘Nayi soch’... and I am like, ‘Are you kidding?! Look at what you’re showing!’ 

Priyanka: What about films?
Not anymore. When I lived in Gurgaon, it was a five-minute walk. But now (in Bangalore), it’s a little far away. I wanted to watch this Manisha Koirala movie, Dear Maya. I did watch Bahubali 2, in Chandigarh. The romance was rocking. I was like, ‘Mazaa aa gaya’. But the second half was so bad! Amarendra was Mufasa and Mahendra was Simba! 

Priyanka: We are sure you hear it all the time but you just don’t seem to age! Is it genes, is it ginseng or just inherent goodness from surrounding yourself with the good things in life?
I think a lot of it is genes. My mom passed away last year at 83 and even one week before she passed away, she was so fit and so fast. Even my dad is amazingly fit. So I think it’s genes. And a tendency to put on weight on the face, so it’s like natural botox, you have chubby cheeks (laughs out loud). 

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SNAP CHAT

Book or Kindle?
Book. I did something for Kindle and they gave me one and I lost it within the first week. I thought it was some calculator. So no, it does not work for me. 
The last book you read?
I just finished reading Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open. I really liked it. I was hooked. 
The book you have returned to the most number of times?
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.
 

The best book-to-screen adaptation for you?
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I thought LOTR was decent. I think a lot of people have done horrible adaptations, so I felt LOTR got a decent one, no major twisting of the story, like Alice (Alice in Wonderland). LOTR was very, very, very true to the original. So I liked that.