FOR THE LOVE OF STORYTELLING

Architect and author Sanjukta Nandy deftly navigated the challenges she faced while writing her first fiction thriller The Trojan Horse. In this candid chat with Shraddha Kamdar, she shares how she approached the process, her inspiration, and working with her coauthor.

- Shraddha Kamdar

As a child, Sanjukta Nandy was so mischievous that her mother thought the easiest way to keep her occupied was by “shoving a book into her hand.” She fondly remembers how Enid Blyton’s The Faraway Tree was the first-ever book she read by herself. The love for reading and storytelling has only deepened over the years, through her schooling, training in architecture, and working in the creative field.

The architect, movie buff, and author, who lives in Mumbai with her filmmaker husband Kushan Nandy, has made her first foray into the world of fiction thrillers, a stark contrast to her first book Khantastic, which chronicles interesting tales from the lives of Bollywood's most famous Khans. Sanjukta’s newest offering to readers is The Trojan Horse, a high-stakes espionage thriller she coauthors with interiors-architecture journalist Rupali Sebastian.

“I've always been fond of reading crime, thrillers, and stories of espionage,” reveals the author, who loves the gripping pace of Sidney Sheldon and the timeless intrigue of Agatha Christie “So, I thought my first fiction book had to be about the same!” she laughs. In Greek mythology, the Trojan horse refers to the concept of deceptive infiltration, something that has always caught Sanjukta's fancy. The story of the book is on similar lines, and gives it its title.