After a 30-year career in advertising, Indu Balachandran pursued her one true love — writing. That took her around the world, literally; she became a travel writer. She reviewed 70 eco-friendly destinations across the country; her writings have been featured in five short-story anthologies, and she has written humour columns for The Hindu .
Her second book, Runaway Writers , doesn’t shift too far from travel. It’s about three young women who quit their jobs and travel to Greece for a writers’ workshop, in pursuit of their dreams. The trip inspires them, but not without unexpected twists and turns in Santorini.
Indu talks about why calling her book chick-lit doesn’t bother her much, and how she might just identify with the protagonist. Excerpts.
Will you classify your book under the chick-lit category?
As a kid, I was raised on an unhealthy diet of Mad magazines and Ogden Nash. So, humour comes naturally to me. My first book ( Don’t Go Away, We’ll Be Right Back ) was just a fun take on my advertising days — there’s so much to laugh at in an ad agency; it’s like the theatre of the absurd every day.
One day, I got a call from a Delhi-based acquisition editor — a mysterious call that writers dream of — who said, ‘Why don’t you write a light-hearted trippy read, much like your other book?’ She suggested it could be romantic, and, for some reason, she wanted the protagonist to be a girl from Chennai. I guess there were too many books with girls from Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. This was four years ago.
We tend to get snobby about the word ‘chick-lit’. Then, I thought, who cares what you call it; for me, it’s a chance to write about a girl from Chennai and make it fun. But if it is seen not as a chick-lit but as part travelogue and part finding your mojo, I would say that’s the purpose of my book. Romance is just the flavour that holds it together.
Are you then a romantic?
( laughs ) I am, I am! In a ‘it’s not the gift you give but the note that accompanies the gift’ way. Even funny-romantic is great. That’s what makes sparks fly; when you can laugh together. I think that’s the most romantic you can get with another person.
How did Runaway Writers come together?
I had little time to create a synopsis and get approval before I started writing. I had just returned from a writer’s workshop in Greece. We didn’t learn much, but it was such joy. I had all those notes from the trip, and somehow, the two came together.
Did you pull instances from your own life to sketch the protagonist’s character? They say, write what you know...
Both my books have come to me pretty easily. I pulled instances from mine and my daughter’s childhood. My editor loved the first draft and said she wanted more of the south Indianness. But my book wasn’t just going to be a ditzy romance.
I looked around and saw people of my generation stuck with jobs they didn’t like. Whereas, the younger generation is bolder — they just do what they want.
Few take the leap to pursue their passion, and that’s the idea I’ve infused in my book. In this case, it’s biased towards writers: I’ve made it out to be the best profession in the creative world.
So, do you identify yourself with Amby, the protagonist?
Well, yes. People say it’s my voice that’s coming through, which horrified me, because I’m too old and I wanted a younger voice. To begin with, the characters are all writers. I was a ghost Tweeter for a hotel chain — it was my hilarious day job, while I was a travel writer. Amby, in the book, is also a ghost Tweeter; she comes up with witty lines but anonymously so. Amby goes through that angst; she’s making someone else famous. Not only was it easy to mould her character, but also that of the second girl, Bobby, who quits advertising! But not the third one who’s trying to write erotic fiction: definitely, not her. I would perhaps be a contender for the ‘Bad Sex in Fiction Award’.
What about your next book?
I would go back to travel now. I stepped out into romance and didn’t think I could do it, but it’s done.
Runaway Writers will be launched on February 11, at The Folly, Amethyst at 6.30 p.m.
