The twenty second session of An Author’s Afternoon was an interesting affair with author Anuja Chauhan on June 2, 2015, at The Taj Bengal presented by Shree Cement. Professor Debnita Chakravarty engaged Anuja Chauhan in a candid discussion with a high dose of humour.

Anuja Chauhan is an Indian author and advertiser, often described as the best writer of the Indian commercial fiction. Anuja worked with JWT India for over 17 years and went on to become the vice-president and executive creative director. She resigned in 2010 to pursue a full-time literary career. Over the years she worked with brands like Pepsi, Kurkure, Mountain Dew and Nokia.

In the conversation she said that her book Those Pricey Thakur Girls was written in a very sympathetic manner about the sisters. She also shared her childhood stories of her stay in a boarding school in Meerut. She recounted times when there were communal riots and curfews and nobody could go anywhere. There was no TV, so her friends and she used to sit together and used to make up stories…. “I was like a little TV show”, she said.

To a question – How her experience in advertising influenced her writing? She said “The first boss I ever had in advertising said the three Rs of advertising are rapidity, resilience and repertoire which is actually quite true. I don’t know how much of it I have actually imbibed but what they try and teach you is not to bore people. Nowadays I can skip ads in five seconds on YouTube. On a deeper level, you generally try and have insights that connect with people”.