Unloved in Love: The Story of Imperfect People is a romance title with the right mix of contemporary and fairytale. An unparalleled drama where friendships are tested and love is reasoned with. A story that shows how moving ahead is easy but getting over is never a possibility when there is true love. 

Rituparna Ghosh, the author, has a candid conversation with our Managing Editor, Indrani Ganguly where she opens up about writing her debut novel.

Indrani: Congratulations on your first book, Unloved in Love! Tell us about the rollercoaster journey of the story idea to the first draft to the editorial process to the feeling of finally holding your book physically.

Ritu: It was not a glamourous roller coaster journey really, more like the slow-paced but essential goods train. The idea first came to me in September 2017. We had just moved to London and with my son almost turning two, I had to figure out where I was headed next. The anxiety was like how it was in college, that feeling where one decision could change the course of your life? Only it was worse because at 22 world’s your oasis, at 36 you have a lot more to show than a few white hairs. I’m known to be very impulsive jumping headlong into things. So, this time I wanted to take my time. Then one day, I got very frustrated and said to hell with choices, who decides which was the right one anyway? And since I was thinking a lot about college, I just chose that as a starting point.

When I started writing I didn’t really have a story idea, I just had my characters – one girl who thought she knew what she wanted, one boy who was what she needed, and another who needed her. So, it was really like taking the first step and writing the first chapter and then the story kind of wrote itself.

The first draft looked a lot different from where the book is today, it was more melodramatic and over the top. Expectedly, the feedback was not very positive, my writing was said to be juvenile and the characters lacked depth. I’m a coach I usually struggle with negative feedback, but in this case, I was hooked. It’s much like starting your own venture, you’re too invested to bail, the only way out is forward. I decided to go back to school and joined a novel-writing course at the London School of Journalism. Actually, all through the writing, it was all about taking the next step, I honestly didn’t think about the end project. Even from draft submission to here, I just took it one day at a time.

Indrani: An academic background of production engineering and management, a career in Research and Analytics…how did you end up writing fiction?

Ritu: Since I was an only child to working parents, a lot of time I was left home alone with my thoughts and imagination. In them, I was anything and everything from a milk lady to a lawyer. We moved quite a lot, I changed nine schools in my twelve years of schooling, so my dreamworld was my only constant companion.

But back in those days to be a writer you had to be really good, I was good at telling stories but I was better at maths and science. I got very good grades in 10^th Std and that kind of sealed my fate. Science was an obvious choice, and those were the days where good students became an engineer or a doctor. But being a girl production engineer didn’t really get you placement in 2002, no shop floor was open to hiring a girl, so the next logical step was MBA. It was more directive really, more of what I was expected to do. I was good at it, got placed and had a successful run so I never questioned it, but I was restless, I always felt I was an imposter between all the smart people I worked with. I changed four jobs in ten years before quitting to focus on our infertility journey. After that, when the chance came to actually figure out what I wanted to do, I chose to write.

Indrani: Has romance always been a favoured genre? What kind of books do you love to read?

Ritu: Actually, my favoured genre has always been crime and thrillers, I grew up with Famous Fives, Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christies before sinking my teeth into Mario Puzo, Irving Wallace, Fredrik Forsyths, Sydney Sheldon and Dan Browns. But I am a hardcore romantic at heart. I love the high that being in love gives, there is something about love that warms, like soft sunshine on a cold day. Hence romance novels are my dope, I totally trip on Jane Austen, Bronte sisters, of the new lot, Nicholas Spark, John Green, Graeme Smith.

Indrani: Unloved in Loved, although a love story, is not a typical ‘candyfloss’ romance. It is as much as about ‘finding oneself’ as it is about ‘finding love’. Was that what you set out for?

Ritu:  My main purpose was to write about characters who are in no way perfect, people like me and you, who have to take life decisions, make choices and deal with consequences. I chose romance as a genre because I’m partial to it, also I have a sneaky feeling I lack the imagination to cook up a murder mystery.

Indrani: Usually the author converts reality to a form of fiction, has the opposite ever happened to you?

Ritu: Totally! I love music and wanted to introduce it in the book in some way, therefore I gave Kiara the guitar. But when I was writing, I saw her having so much fun with it that I promptly enrolled myself in classes. I just finished grade 1, hopefully, will be proficient in a few years.

Indrani: How much of the three main characters are you? Who do you identify most with­―Kiara, Kyle or Karan?

Ritu: Such a clichéd question! Since the book is written in a first-person view from all three characters, I absolutely identify with all three of them. There are parts of me in all three of them, other parts are from observing some wonderful people I came across in my short lifetime.

Indrani: Do you think flawed and broken people make great stories?

Ritu: I think people who seek adventure make great stories, flawed or broken has nothing to do with it.

Indrani: What was the most challenging part of the journey?

Ritu: Writing it from a first-person point of view for all three characters. It was really challenging to get under their skin and into their heads, at the same time remembering how others would react to it. For instance, when I was writing a scene between all three of them from Kiara’s point of view, I not only had to keep in mind what Kiara would say but how Karan or Kyle would react to her. For a while, I almost felt I had a split personality!

Indrani: Do you think ‘happily ever afters’ are highly overrated? Are modern love stories changing the established norms of romances?

Ritu: I don’t know who suggested ‘happily ever after’ as the established norm, I’d very much like to meet these people and give them a piece of my mind. It’s the biggest myth that romance as a genre has circulated, in fact in real life the actual journey begins after you’ve fallen in love. Try living together with the love of your life, when there are bills to be paid, dinners to be made all the ‘happy’ goes out of the window and all that stays are arguments. But no one prepares you how to walk down these thorny parts of a relationship, no one tells you that to be happy you’ve to continuously work towards it, you’ll have to sometime chip away parts of you to fit in with the other person, you’ll have to reprioritise your life. I’d take ‘happily now’ any day! Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong believer of love and relationships, but all I am saying, its hard work, and somehow the term ‘happily ever after’ doesn’t sound right. It should be something like Kaizen ever after.

Indrani: What does the title ‘Unloved in Love’ mean? How can one be in love and still be unloved?

Ritu: Love is not unidimensional, is it? You are not loved by only one person, to thrive you need a lot of people to love you, right from your parents to people you work with. In this book, all three characters feel the lack of love from one avenue.

Indrani: Is lack of self-love also a form of being unloved?

Ritu: That’s the biggest form of being unloved! How can anyone love you if even you don’t love yourself?

Indrani: Have you found your calling in writing?

Ritu: The joy of creating something from start to finish in unparallel, so I’d definitely continue to write, in fact, the second book is already under the wings.  But I’ll always be someone who likes to be the jane of few trades, I am a transformational life coach and I’d continue to be that along with playing my guitar and if someone from the second book inspires me, I might take up that craft as well.

Rituparna’s novel about finding love is now available online and in all major bookstores.