All doubts about What Your Mother Never Told You About Love being a self-help book disappear right from page 1.
All doubts about What Your Mother Never Told You About Love being a self-help book disappear right from page 1. Juhi Pande, the author, tells you right away: “In my opinion, there are few people who have managed to find that one person who they want to spend their eternity with. For the rest of us it is a matter of: (a) Trial and error (b) Making do (c) Keep on looking and lucking out (d) Cats and a rocking chair.” You know right there that Juhi is not going to list chapters of “Do’s and Don’ts” and “How To’s”.
“This book is for all the girls who haven’t unravelled themselves yet, who still need to get to that ‘aha’ moment in their lives The book is not aimed at teenagers as such. It’s more a general book on love. Random House had the idea about this book and when they approached me, I was sold from the word go,” says Juhi, who has been a television presenter for the last eight years.
“This is a subject you can write volumes on and everyone has something to share,” adds Juhi. “Plus, I was told I could write it in whichever vein I felt necessary. So I tried to make it as fun as possible. I feel we take love (and life) too seriously sometimes.”
So she has thrown in a bit of humour in every few lines at times subtle and at others, not so much; but all of it, spontaneous. Not that different from her real life conversations. “I try to inject as much humour in my life as possible. How else is it going to be interesting,” she asks in a serious tone.
Through the 18 chapters in her book, she has, with a hint of her own life experiences and talks with other women, written a stage by stage story of relationships and their hangovers. She doesn’t claim to be an expert on the subject though. “I badgered my friends and family for seven months. I picked their brains constantly. I picked my brain constantly. I didn’t want to slide off course. Also, I didn’t want to make it so selective that it would be difficult to identify with,” she shares.
Juhi was also careful not to make it autobiographical, though bits of her life do pour into the chapters. She says, “I don’t think a subject like love can have a very distant, impersonal author.”
Juhi adds that she plans to be a full time writer now. “I just had an article published in a magazine. I do a regular column for Homegrown.in called Vous Etes Sexy and I’m currently in talks about a second column with a publication. Also, I’m doing a summer course in writing in London. So I’m rather excited about that,” she ends.
