In India, celebrities are picking up their pens

Amrit Dhillon 
Journalist in New Delhi, India

Despite a population of 1.4 billion people, the number of celebrities in this immense country is tiny – mostly confined to Bollywood stars – and the market for children’s books is also small. Yet the phenomenon is real: more and more celebrities in India are writing books for children. 

Famous filmmaker Karan Johar has written Big Thoughts of Little Luv. Well-known politician Maneka Gandhi has written There is a Monster Under My Bed. Actress Soha Ali Khan and her husband Kunal Khemu have published the Inni and Bobo series which explains the responsibilities involved in having a pet. Another top actress, Alia Bhatt, is working on a children’s book.

What is striking about these celebrities is that the impetus to write stems from their own experiences. “The writing is linked to their personal phase of life – either they are pregnant (Alia Bhatt) or have become parents. If their own child likes a story they have related, they start thinking that maybe other children will enjoy it too,” said Mansi Shetty, who heads the children’s marketing division at Penguin Random House. For example, when Khan recited a story she had made up, her daughter’s obvious question was “why can’t I see the characters?” The answer was for Khan to have the story illustrated and published. 

Some public figures have become huge successes in this field. One of the top-selling children’s authors in the country is Sudha Murty who is not an actress, model or film director, but the wife of Narayana Murthy, founder of the software giant Infosys.

Murty has become a public person for being the mother-in-law of British prime minister Rishi Sunak, and for the books she’s written about her life and her children’s books. She began writing her wildly popular books including Grandma’s Bag of Stories, which sold 97,000 copies in 2021, when she became a grandmother. She wanted to tell her grandchildren stories she had been told as a child, around the themes of family, sharing, and culture. 

Priyanka Malhotra, director of Full Circle bookshop in New Delhi, says that while young children are not going to be influenced by a celebrity’s status, the parents might well be intrigued enough to buy the book. But this can work both ways, she says. “Some parents will be sceptical, thinking that an actor may be a good actor but no good as a writer, and they will prefer to stick to established authors.”

Booksellers are clear that celebrity status cannot trump content. “If the story isn’t up to the mark, parents will not recommend it by word of mouth and they’ll stick to the tried and tested authors, Indian and foreign. I am not seeing any special demand for celebrity authors. The demand is for good books. Period,” said Malhotra. 

Likewise with publishers. They say their decision to publish or not rests entirely on the quality of the story. If the quality does not measure up, no amount of stratospheric fame is going to make a difference. 

Successful authors have managed to find topics that resonate with parents and parenthood. Khan’s book about the pros and cons of having a pet is a perfect accompaniment to a discussion with a young child on whether to get a puppy. Similarly, Gandhi’s There is a Monster Under My Bed offered solutions to parents with children struggling with common fears such as fear of abandonment and fear of the dark. As Gandhi told interviewers, she suggested confronting the issues head on, with a light touch. When her own granddaughter whispered into her ear that a monster was sleeping under her bed, Gandhi simply replied: “That’s so lucky. I also want one.”

On the same note – books tackling what will appeal to parents – celebrity chef Vikas Khanna, who has already written the story The Magic Rolling Pin, is coming out soon with a book for children on cooking.

Though the trend seems to be catching on, publishers are quite clear that celebrity authors are unlikely to topple the international names loved by children all over the world. They have novelty value, true, but staying power? Time will tell.