Judy Balan:  Author of Two Fates
By Sherin M

Judy Balan wears many hats, single mother, advertising professional, avid blogger, playwright, and now a novelist. She quit her job to be a full time parent and to focus on her writing. Her book, Two Fates, which began as a spoof on IIT trained iconic author Chetan Bhagat’s Two States has proved it can stand on its own by going in for a reprint within a month of its coming out.

Judy also writes reviews, interviews, and stories for her daughter. She talks to Techgoss about the inspiration and the process that went into the writing of Two Fates. 

Techgoss (TG): First question as always, how did you get the idea for this book?
Judy: I happened to be in Landmark one day, when I spotted the parody of Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Since I was a big fan of Eat Pray Love, I picked up the book and then looked up the author. I learnt that the author of the parody had already sold movie rights for his book and I thought 'Wow, look at that! This guy rips off someone's internationally best-selling plot, writes the inverse of it and ends up selling movie rights!'

It just so happened that I was reading Two States by Chetan Bhagat at that time, so I went back home and wrote a blog post saying how cool it would be if I wrote the parody of Two States. It was ONLY a joke and I never actually intended to go through with it. But it so happened that I got a LOT of responses to that post and some people even emailed me saying I should give it a shot, that there was an idea there. So I thought, why not? I wrote the prologue alone initially and circulated it among my friends and a few blog readers and when they lapped it up, I decided to try my hand at a full length novel - as an experiment, mostly. I wrote it in two and a half months and once done, I thought, why not send this to a few publishers!  So I sent it to very few publishers who were accepting manuscripts online and voila - I signed the contract in a couple of months.

TG: Please tell us about the characters in the book, how did they come about?
Judy: I honestly don't have an intelligent answer - They popped out of my head is all I can say. For the protagonists, I just wanted two lovable individuals with a bunch of annoying traits that grated on each other - making peaceful coexistence quite a challenge. Deepika's quirkiness probably stems from my love for all things loola but I don't think I was conscious of this when I wrote her. I had a lot of fun writing the peripheral characters though - the aunty-uncle brigade, the small town boy, the airheads and on and on. I remember being bothered for the longest time about typical Indianisms such as ignoring boundaries, getting too familiar too soon, aunty types dispensing unsolicited advice to unsuspecting strangers, the unhealthy obsession with marital status and on and on.

When I got divorced, things came to a head and though I was hopping mad at the time, time as always, worked its magic and I was able to see the humour in the situation about two years down the line. I mean, it was so absurd, it was funny. And that's what the book is peppered with - Indianisms. While all characters are entirely fictional, they would never have existed if I hadn't had my share of run-ins with the people who once drove me up the wall.

TG: Please tell us a little about the process that went into writing the book. Did you have a routine you stuck to or did you just write whenever you got time or an idea came into your mind?
Judy: I'm extremely unorganized when it comes to writing - I go for days without writing and as a result, I feel guilty. Then I let the guilt do its work and I lecture myself into a routine and for a brief while, I behave. Since Two Fates was mostly an experiment at writing a full-length novel, I didn't set any word-count goals to begin with. But after a point, once I was in the flow, I had to sort of wean myself from the keyboard to do other things.

TG: What is your favourite part in the book? Was any section more difficult to write?
Judy: I don't have a favourite part. The whole book was an exercise in self-amusement though I particularly enjoyed writing a few characters - The Cat, Twinky and The Inner Voice.
 
Again, there wasn't a particular section that was difficult but I did get stuck somewhere around the 11th chapter because I had planned a certain ending for the book but as I wrote it, my protagonists seemed to take off in completely different directions. I then abandoned it for a while because no matter how much I tried, I couldn't get them to behave as I wanted them to. I know I sound slightly loola but the process really was as capricious as it sounds. And finally, the characters had their way and the ending they wanted. I'm not complaining though!

TG: How has your family and friends reacted to the book? Has life changed after the book?
Judy: They are all obnoxiously proud and still trying to wrap their heads around the fact that this is really happening. Life hasn't changed much but the pace has - drastically. From vegetating in my PJs and writing blog posts to not having time for a breather. It's been crazy and it's going to take me a while to keep up but as of now, I'm loving it.