She juggles a full time career with a travel company, raises her two little girls, runs four times a week, blogs and also loves to toe the line with her dare devil attitude. And more recently, Gauri Jayaram wrote her first novel Wise Enough to be Foolish , which won rave reviews for its snappy style and realistic portrayal of an Indian girl’s life. In Hyderabad for the launch of her book at Landmark, Gauri says, “I’m just the kind of person who has to be doing something all the time.”
The author, who recently trekked to the Everest Base Camp and ran the Dead Sea marathon in Jordan, adds, “I don’t want to be defined by just one thing. I’d die of boredom. That is why I make sure I do all the things that matter to me and make my life interesting.” This does however mean sometimes having to make sacrifices, she says, adding, “It helps that I have a great support system and an incredibly supportive spouse.”
Quiz her on how the book happened and she says, “A few years back when I was on a cruise with friends, I was telling them about a book I had to write on the travel industry.
The conversation led to my story and they suggested that I write about my life rather than a boring business book.”
The idea stuck and as soon as Gauri got off her flight back home she began writing her book. “For four days I did just that – write. My husband was curious about what I was doing, but I didn’t tell him till I finished. Although I wrote the book in those four days, it took me over a year to edit and refine it,” she says.
The book is a fictionalised memoir and talks about the first 28 years of Gauri’s life, her first marriage and how she moved on after her first husband’s infidelity.
“The book is a very girl power kind of book. Because even today there are societal pressures to make a marriage work no matter what the man does. My book talks about how the protagonist deals with life’s situations,” says the author, an active blogger.
After the success of her first book, Gauri admits that she is brimming with ideas for her next book. But in the meantime the author, who has already been river rafting and run the Arctic Circle marathon, has a long list of things she still has to try. “I want to do the London Triathlon, learn scuba diving, go on a cycling trip along the Danube and trek Kilimanjaro,” she laughs.
