Deepti, actor and author, describes her new book as a love letter to her parents

on Jul 21, 2022

Actress and novelist Deepti Naval's The Write Circle session was organised by the non-profit Prabha Khaitan Foundation in Chandigarh.

On July 18, Deepti held book signings for her new memoir, "A Country Called Childhood: A Memoir," in Delhi, Mumbai, and Amritsar, where she had lived for 19 years. It sheds light on Deepti's other facets, the philosopher and the observationist, as she arrives in Chandigarh on Wednesday night for an interactive session with conversationalist Vivek Atray. In contrast to other celebrities who have opted to chronicle all of their major life tales in memoirs or autobiographies, the author of the memoir spends most of the nearly two decades she spent writing it on her youth.

She claims that she has photographic memories and stories ingrained in her mind because they have been there throughout her life. I have trouble recalling the finer points of my young and current lives, but not my childhood. Additionally, starting with one old memory frequently causes the opening of several others, leading to the outcome.

She donned a black and white saree to the occasion, mirroring the memoir's cover, which has a black and white photo of her when she was younger. She makes a joke about how plain her outfit is, saying, "Simplicity is the style statement I choose for myself. All hues are there within me.

In addition, Deepti has successfully expressed those colours through her creative endeavours, including acting, writing, and painting.

During a book signing, the audience was eager to ask the author questions and full of curiosity.

She has already published three books, including Lamha Lamha in 1981, Black Wind and Other Poems in 2004, and The Mad Tibetan: Stories from Then and Now. In her new biography, she alludes to the possibility of writing a book on her cinema career.

While Deepti claims to be an old soul who learned that loss is a part of life through her mother's stories of being uprooted (first from Lahore due to the Partition, then from Burma due to the Second World War), Deepti holds the opinion that one is not always prepared for it, but as you come across loss you know it's part and parcel of life. The actress describes her book as a love letter to her parents after she lost her mother in 2017.

The author concludes, "The only sorrow of this book is that once it is published, my parents won't be there to read it; otherwise, it is a beautiful childhood filled with memories of Amritsar (Ambarsar)."