Just a few days ago, Shweta Bachchan-Nanda launched her fashion label and now she’s donning the hat of a writer. Her debut novel Paradise Towers is about the residents of a building and how their lives are intertwined with each other. “This story wasn’t on my mind initially, I was actually writing another book. But this particular idea just kept coming back and I decided to then go ahead with it,” said Shweta.
Having grown up in an independent house in Juhu, one wonders how she was able to construct a story on the lives of people in a building. “I’ve had several friends tell me stories about their apartment complex. How they would go every evening between 5pm and 6pm and play in the compound, or have these building gatherings,” she said. She says visits to her friend’s apartments stayed with her and those experiences found their way into her book. “I’m quite observant and tend to absorb things quite easily, so that really helped,” she said.
Her decision to become an author doesn’t come as a surprise because her family boasts of a rich literary heritage. Her paternal grandfather was the esteemed writer and poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and her maternal grandfather Taroon Kumar Bhaduri was also a writer and journalist. “They’re in a different league and I’m just starting out, so I can’t be pegged with them,” she said.
Her interest for writing was extremely personal and was not known by even close family members. “I didn’t really share it with anyone so nobody really guided me in that sense. But I was always a reader and have especially enjoyed the classics like Charles Dickens, the Bronte sisters, but my favourite is Jane Austen,” she said excitedly. This is just the beginning for her and she looks forward to writing more, and is already working on her next book.
Camera: Sanjoy Deb
Camera Assistant: Gautam Sharma
Editor: Veeru Krishan Mohan
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