Fairy tale end decoded

Jane D’Suza admits that her pen automatically spoofs things up. And therein lies her voice – not just murderously funny, but relatable. After her earlier titles like The Spy Who Lost her Head and her best-selling SuperZero series for kids, the Bengaluru-based author’s latest to hit the shelves is Happily Never After and she can’t help but be over the moon by the response.

Set in Bengaluru’s traffic woes and cosmopolitan mindsets, Jane challenges the notion of a stereotypical romance with this one. “Starry-eyed love stories typically have a guy-meets-girl plot, which after 11 fights and 12 make-up scenes, rides to The End. This book starts after The End – What happens a year or 10 years later? It’s a quirky look at real life and love through all the ups, downs and forgotten birthdays over the years,” she says.

The story follows a married-going-crazy heroine, Tina Raja who tries to blog out her frustration at daily life while searching for love, lust and mustard seeds. But suddenly, she meets the man of her dreams – but she’s married! “I find my muse in conversations in cafes (some overheard) and especially in the things that people leave unsaid,” Jane tells us.

She takes caring for animals just as seriously as writing. In fact, even before she knew she wanted to be a writer, “I wanted to be a dozen different things, like working with animals in some faraway reserve – I think I still do,” she says, admitting that she loves animals so much that she sometimes takes a stand at the risk of ticking people off.

Jane is also a management graduate and a creative consultant who writes advertising campaigns. “I am aware that I earn less than a tenth that I could have in a high-paid management job. There’s no logic to everything,” she says, now having a special ability to live through her characters. Jane also admits, “I can’t cook. I am a terrible judge of people and I promise to give up chocolate every day. I also hate narrow-minded parochialism.”    

Jane enjoys writing for adults and children alike. “Children are willing to go on a joyride through the most impossible journey. So, in writing for children, I let my imagination go cuckoo,” she says, sitting down to write her next – SuperZero and the Clone Crisis – the third in the series in three years. “Adults will have to wait longer,” she says.