One word that appears a lot in reviews of her books is ‘witty’ or else its synonyms. Readers have laughed out loud while reading Those Pricey Thakur Girls, called Battle for Bittora fun and The Zoya Factor warm. When Anuja Chauhan prepares to bring out her fourth book The House That BJ Built, a sequel to Those Pricey Thakur Girls, a background is set and expectations laid out.
“When I started writing, what came out as Those Pricey Thakur Girls three years ago was supposed to be called The House That BJ built. It was planned as this big, sweeping family saga about a house and a property dispute (which is something we all have in our families!). But then it kept getting longer, which would not have been financially viable, so we decided to cut it into two books and publish them as sequels. Pricey is set in the 80s while House is set twenty years later, in almost-present day Delhi,” shares Anuja.
While Pricey revolves around the lives of five sisters, alphabetically named from A to E, House is led by the daughter of one of them — Bonu, child of Binodini Thakur. Binodini never wanted to sell her hissa (share) in her dad’s old house on Hailey Road, and now her daughter Bonu is just as determined. But there are the pushy aunts to deal with. One of them is a stepmother of her childhood crush, Samar Vir Singh.
Anuja creates Bonu ballsy, brave and beautiful, and she retains these traits throughout the book. “She’s a very unapologetic sort of person and has all kinds of pre-conceived notions and grudges that get sorted out later.”
Like in her earlier works, Hindi creeps into her English and Anuja believes it is a part of writing as natural as possible. “Some Hindi tends to creep in, as my books are mostly set in Delhi. When I do that, I take care to also mention the same word in English. So the first time I say hissa, I’ll casually let slip that it means ‘portion’ and so on — so (hopefully!) nobody feels excluded.”
After a long and successful career in advertising, Anuja had taken a break to become a full-time writer. But now she has returned in a part-time consultant role.
“I’ve done several films for Pepsi this year including a viral long format film called Back to School, the Live It Abhi campaigns and most recently, Crash The Pepsi IPL campaign. “I certainly missed the buzz of advertising, and I’m happy to be back to the insane deadlines, the buzz and the challenge. It makes a nice change for the times when I sit in the garden of my quiet little Halli, writing novels and leading the slow life.”
While she leads the slow life, she picks up little stories that unfold before her. She concludes, “I lift from real life all the time — fact is always funnier than fiction and I mix the two shamelessly.
There’s this story that I would like to tell about a wizened old dude who came to visit my parents, had a few drinks, and then as he got uncertainly to his feet, my father was all concerned and asked —‘should I drop you home?’And the old fellow said, ‘no, I have a driver.’ And then he phoned the driver, and we all went downstairs to see him off, and his driver came riding up on a little scooter with an extra helmet tucked under his arm. I could never have dreamed that up!”
