Anamika Mishra writes a book faster than some Indians take to get a driver’s license. Her latest, For The Sake of Love, which released a couple of months ago, took the young author all of two months to put down. And this is after penning the first draft ‘by hand’ in her diary.
“I lock myself away when I’m writing to make sure my book gets complete priority,” relates the 28-year-old, who stays clear of social calls and even skips meals to get the job done. So it’s not surprising we discover that Anamika roped in the contract for her debut release VoiceMates while still in college. When she isn’t working on a book project, she’s usually creating content for her self-titled travel and lifestyle blog, which turned a decade old last year.
Her third book, published by Westland, has us curious because it isn’t just any love story, but rather one inspired by a chance meeting while on a holiday. “I met this elderly gentleman while in Shimla a few years ago, and he shared with me this amazing story of how he would keep writing these love letters to a woman he knew. After a while, he stopped hearing back. But he continued to persist for more than 60 years,” Anamika recalls. Her book, set in Shimla as well, is inspired by the same premise and follows its central character Twisha Khanna, who discovers the letters, but is far from a romantic at heart, and has no time for it as a driven career woman.
The Mumbai-based writer admits that she’s never received a love letter herself in this fast paced digital age of speed dating and Tinder, adding that this story is meant to inspire hope in a generation that sometimes gives up too easily on love. “Today, we are so impatient that if it doesn’t work, out we don’t really try,” she says. Romantic stamina aside, what we want to know is — did the writer of the letters ever find his soulmate? But we know her answer even before she smiles and hooks us in with, “You’ll have to read the book.”
For The Sake Of Love, Westland, Rs 199.