My journey:
* As a kid, desperate to be blonde, I shaved off my black bushy eyebrows, coloured them in with a yellow marker, and went to school. Miss Davies, my teacher, was horrified and told me that I would go far in life by just being myself. Well…Not possible culturally! I wanted to be a writer; my parents wanted me to be a lawyer. Their struggle shaped their desire for my stability.
*Worked for a management consultancy and wrote my first novel, Gypsy Masala. It got rejected by every publisher. Quit my job to follow a dream. Well, technically I got made redundant. Couldn’t tell my parents, so I put on a suit, pretended to go to work, and went to the library. That suit routine lasted 8 months – yes, you read that right!
* Had a brainwave and set up my own publishing and PR company. Hyped Gypsy Masala shamelessly under a blonde alias, Pru, thereby fulfilling my blonde ambition 😉 Got Gypsy Masala into the charts (still putting on a suit and still pretending to go to work!). Pru was shortlisted as Publicist of the Year! Really didn’t want to win as I couldn’t thank the various parts of myself who had been a dream to work with.
* Signed a 3-book deal with HarperCollins. Not what I thought it would be. Set up my own consultancy, working with leaders globally to tell their stories.
* A series of life-changing events in short succession made me want to stay safely in my comfort zone. But nothing happens in the comfort zone, so I did the thing that terrified me the most… Having never acted before (not even at school), I booked a theatre in the West End and put on a one-woman show – because nobody was interested in seeing a show about a 50-something Asian woman. The show sold out. The producer of The Crown came to see it, and the show got optioned for television.
* Wrote my fourth novel, Unravelling. Turned down the book deal with HarperCollins to go solo again (reasons are many). Unravelling is out in September 2024.
* I’m on the faculty of various business schools, teaching storytelling for personal transformation, and wherever else I can speak because if you change your story, you change your life…
Feel your roots and embrace your dreams…
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Unravelling is out September 2024. You can pre-order at any online retailer or at your local bookshop.