{"id":1329,"date":"2024-07-18T11:06:07","date_gmt":"2024-07-18T10:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/?p=1329"},"modified":"2024-07-18T11:06:10","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T10:06:10","slug":"a-double-life-a-blonde-alter-ego-and-a-three-book-deal-sharing-my-story-for-south-asian-heritage-month-freetobeme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/a-double-life-a-blonde-alter-ego-and-a-three-book-deal-sharing-my-story-for-south-asian-heritage-month-freetobeme\/","title":{"rendered":"A double life, a blonde alter-ego, and a three-book deal. Sharing my story for South Asian Heritage Month #freetobeme"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My journey:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* 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\u2026Not possible culturally! I wanted to be a writer; my parents wanted me to be a lawyer. Their struggle shaped their desire for my stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*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\u2019t 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 \u2013 yes, you read that right!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* 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 \ud83d\ude09 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\u2019t want to win as I couldn\u2019t thank the various parts of myself who had been a dream to work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* 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\u2026 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* I\u2019m 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\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feel your roots and embrace your dreams\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

———————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unravelling<\/a> is out September 2024. You can pre-order at any online retailer or at your local bookshop.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2026Not possible culturally! I wanted to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6M31y-lr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1329"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1332,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions\/1332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}