“I’ve led a colourful life and experienced ups and downs which I felt would not be unique to me. I wanted to put that out and see if people could relate to and perhaps benefit from it,” says actress and television host Anu Hasan. Sunny Side Up (HarperCollins; Rs. 299), to be launched in Hyderabad today, is an anecdotal, self-help book that gives an insight into what Anu learnt from her friends, family, marriage, and her colleagues in cinema and television.
The book is divided into sections — parents, friends, image and appearance, drive and ambition, and bouncing back after a divorce. “A chronological structure, I felt, would be boring. Dividing the book into sections seemed a better option so that one could read a few pages and return to the book without feeling the lack of continuity. It also helped me organise my thoughts and write,” says Anu. Every now and then, there’s the ‘notes to self’ section that adds charm to the memoirs and gives readers thoughts to ponder over.
In the past, Anu has written columns for magazines and a couple of years ago, her aunt (Suhasini’s mom) egged her on to work on a book. “She said I should write something that could be read at leisure and outlived the periodicity of a magazine. I had wanted to write for a long time but had never attempted fiction,” she says.
Once Anu had decided to dip into her experiences, she shared the idea with Gandhi Kannadasan (son of legendary lyricist Kannadasan) and through him, met Priya Doraswamy of Lotus Lane Literary and eventually with HarperCollins. “Karthika (the chief editor of the publishing house) liked the idea and it snowballed into a book,” says Anu. The self-help section of any bookstore is not found wanting of tomes that promise to guide the reader at every step. “When one has faced so many knocks in life, there is an urge to write about it. Perhaps I was stupidly noble in thinking that people would benefit from it. Going by the responses I’ve been receiving, it turns out that a lot of people can relate to what I’ve written and have led similar, crazy lives. I realised I am absolutely unique just like everyone else,” she laughs.
The ‘drive and ambition’ section gives an idea of how Anu worked with a drive to do better at every step, but wasn’t particularly ambitious. A BITS Pilani graduate who debuted in Suhasini Maniratnam’s Indira (1995) in a titular role, she featured in a slew of Tamil and occasionally Telugu films in supporting roles. While she acted in several Tamil television series and a cookery show, it was Koffee with Anu that became a talking point. Sunny Side Up touches upon her hosting the lively show, conversing with well known film personalities. “At one point, I considered writing a book on what goes on behind the scenes of Koffee with Anu ,” she says.
Of late, Anu has been dividing her time between Chennai and London, where the first episode of her new BBC television series will go on air on Channel 4 on January 22. “Since I am away, I’ve asked my friends to record the first episode,” she says. The series, Cucumber, Banana, Tofu , is written by Russell T. Davies. “It’s a hilarious series and I transform from a demure but hysterical pregnant Indian woman to a cunning person. There, no one knows my body of work. I had to audition and get the role; it’s like starting from scratch,” she says.
Anu has featured in a couple of commercials and has been part of a TV series for HBO but admits, “They haven’t been significant. This BBC series will be a starting point.”
Meanwhile, in Chennai, there are two films to look forward to — Valla Desam and Aakki , where she plays a hockey coach for a team of juvenile delinquent boys. She is also chalking out details for a television chat show and a travelogue.
