Amrita Mahale

Had a fabulous evening chatting with @twinklerkhanna about Real Life, which was the @tweakindiabookclub book of the month for March. We spoke about female friendship, the rage that comes with inhabiting a female body, mothers (and motherhood), and of course, the book’s ending 😉🤫 What an amazing turnout ❤️ (all for me, obviously, LOL). Thanks, @reader_viddh and @mamtamody for sharing pics and videos!

And it’s a wrap on launches for ‘Real Life’! (No future book events will be called launches, I promise) What a wonderful evening it was, and what a privilege to be in conversation with the brilliant (and very kind) Manju Kapur. Thanks to all the friends and readers who showed up and made the evening more special (but I forgot to take pictures with most 🤦🏻‍♀️) A short special appearance via video call by a little guest from Mumbai. And of course, the Real Life dream team: Archana, my editor, Ambar, my agent, and Aakriti, who designed the stunning cover of the book. And a big thank you to @thebookshopinc for hosting the event. The bookshop’s collection and curation took my breath away…hope to be back with a bigger bag and without a back spasm 🙂 There are lots of signed copies (of Real Life and Milk Teeth) for those of you in Delhi who could not make it! @asuitableagency

So lucky to have finally got to celebrate ‘Real Life’ with all these lovely people. As they say, der aaye durust aaye. Thank you to my brilliant friend @supriyanair for an illuminating conversation. And to everyone who showed up on a Friday evening braving rush hour traffic and an orange alert! 🧡

We are thrilled to share that @rahulpandita1 ’s ‘Our Friends in Good Houses’ and @ummrita ’s ‘Real Life’, has been longlisted for the @vowlitfest Book Awards 2026 - English Fiction Category. Congratulations, Rahul and Amrita! This is your sign to pick up their books from your nearest bookstores and read it. #IndianFiction #LiteraryFiction #VoWBookAwards #VoW2026 #ValleyOfWords

Two days in Kozhikode for @keralalitfest ; one word, serendipity. I met Sunita Williams (completely by chance, after giving up hope that this could happen)!! Who among us has not looked at the stars and found ourselves filled with wonder, with awe—and to be in the same room as someone who has been in the sky and seen the earth as a celestial body flecked with mountains and seas and rivers and sand, a celestial body without borders (in her words)…uff, it was incredibly moving. And equally moving, almost as awe-inspiring, was watching the “Eagle-Man of Kozhikode beach” feed kites and dogs, as he has been doing every day for 30 years. I found myself under a cloud of hundreds of black kites swooping down to the hem of the sea before rising again. I was mesmerised. The cherry on top, a short impromptu tour of the city with @avintagestory_farah and two lovely young KLF volunteers in an autorickshaw driven by 70-year old Lalita (I have taken autos thousands of times, but have never been in one driven by a woman!) And of course, there were panels and book signings and parties and all that, but for once, who cares? 🙂 A week of lit-festing comes to an end, now back to real life.

Back home after four fabulous days at @jaipurlitfest So much to cherish and remember - A full house (and then some) for ‘What Women Don’t Want’, and what a fun conversation it was! Can’t wait to do this again, @shunalikhullarshroff1 @bhavikagovil @polospics - A crackling session on crime writing with @author_anirban and @rudraneil6 , for which an alarming number of kids showed up…and asked one too many questions about gruesome murders 😳 - Bus pilates with Bhavika. What can I say, we found ourselves in “hot water” with some fold-up seats - All the writer friends, old and new + the oasis that was the Authors Lounge amidst the crowd of tens of thousands - And of course, the readers and bookstagrammers who braved the crowds and queues to get copies signed, who came up to talk about scenes and lines they loved, whose love for reading and books makes literature festivals possible 🫶🏽

‘What Women Don’t Want’ explores the intimate terrains of modern life, relationships, and contemporary womanhood. In Shunali Khullar Shroff’s witty and incisive novel, ‘The Wrong Way Home,’ forty-year-old Nayantara grapples with divorce, ambition, and the seductive illusions of success in a society obsessed with reinvention. Bhavika Govil’s ‘Hot Water’ examines the quiet disquiet of domestic life, where a mother and her children negotiate love, absence, and the weight of unspoken expectations. Amrita Mahale’s ‘Real Life’ is a Himalayan mystery where the disappearance of a young woman exposes buried desires, the realities of AI and surveillance, and the constant battle between self and society. At the Jaipur Literature Festival 2026, presented by Vedanta, they are in conversation with editor and publisher Poulomi Chatterjee. The session is live at Surya Mahal. Presented by Sakal Media Group. Register to attend! (Link in Bio) Or Subscribe to the Jaipur Literature Festival Youtube Channel. Stay tuned the Full video will be available soon. #JaipurLiteraturefestival2026 #JaipurLiteratureFestival #JaipurLitFest2026 @teamworkarts @sanjoykroy @namitagokhale @williamdalrymple @jlfinternational

A must read story of friendship if you're in the mood for thrilling prose and mystery... Thanks @theladylivesinbook for the recommendation... #thriller #bookstagrammer #debutauthor

At the very glamorous launch of #TheOnlyCity at Quorum last evening. What an honour to have contributed a short story to this incredible anthology about my city, alongside stalwarts and (dazzling) debutants. Thank you @aninditaghose , for giving me an opportunity to bring Sayli into the world, a young girl who understands the social contract this city by the sea demands: if the city does you a good turn, you pay it forward. Now, if only all of us could remember that too.

Milk Teeth turned 7 today! Dropped by @teltrilogy to return my library books, and they asked me if I could sign copies of Milk Teeth. And how many copies did they have in stock? Exactly seven! 😃🧿 Promoting Real Life across cities and festivals has given me a chance to connect with readers again, and be reminded of how much love Milk Teeth has received over the years…and continues to receive, even seven years after publication (some hate too, lol, but that’s a story for another day). Pic 3 from (almost) seven years ago, signing copies of the OG Milk Teeth, also at Trilogy.

At last weekend’s Mumbai LitFest @litlivefest , @sridharkgita and I were in conversation with @deathendsfun for a session titled Left Brain / Right Brain, about how logic and imagination, reason and wonder, and science and art can co-exist and intersect. A few days before the session, Dilip asked us if we would consider inhabiting one of our characters on stage for 5 minutes. It was a wacky idea, but we said yes (and I think it worked!) I prepared a little piece in the voice of Tara, the protagonist of ‘Real Life’, whose life and choices, in many ways, are an antipode to mine. In a session about the harmony between seeming opposites, what else could she do but talk about her creator? I had fun writing this (a.k.a stealing from my own novel, ha) and I hope you have fun reading it 🙂

About two years ago, when @aninditaghose asked me to write a short story for an anthology of Bombay stories, I took two weeks to write back. I confessed to her that I had changed my mind four times but that I still needed more time. I had spent close to 5 years writing 100k words but there was no novel in sight. A few months later, in the endorphin rush of a finished first draft, I said yes. Then I spent many months wishing I were better at saying no and thinking of excuses to politely back out: I was no good at short stories, there was a novel I had to edit and polish, work was going into hyperdrive, big school admissions (lol), etc. But all my life I have regretted nos more than yeses, and I am grateful that on this occasion, good sense prevailed. I mean, look at that line-up. I am so pleased that my story about a young woman from Andheri East who works in AI data annotation made it to this collection, alongside beautiful stories by @prayaag.akbar @tejaswini_apte_rahm @diksha_basu @dharinibhaskar @namrapali9 #ShantaGokhale @rhoskote @manujosephsan @raghukarnad @kersi101 @yogeshmaitreya @yush_azure #LindsayPereira @jairaj.singhr @swarupshubhangi @thayilesque (and photographs by @chirodeepchaudhuri ) Thank you, Anindita! For the privilege of contributing to this book, for your friendship, and for the lovely celebratory dinner ❤️