Anita Saran John and her immense talent never cease to surprise you. She's a writer, a former model, painter, animal lover and she even sings.
Half Rajput, half Bihari, Anita was born in Patna and much of her schooling was from different schools in various parts of the country. This enabled her to "discover more of India". She completed her English honors from Darjeeling's famous Loreto Convent. Her father was employed in Kudremukh and around 1980 they came to Koramangala, having been in Indiranagar for a couple of years prior to that.
Basically, she's been in advertising for 20 years as a copywriter. With "Special skills in Direct Mail copy writing" as she was once told by a Big Daddy from the advertising fraternity. Recognition came in the form of the David Ogilvy award in 1993 for the Windsor Manor hotel campaign. She's been with top agencies such as MAA Bozell, O & M, where she edited the "ODR" newsletter and had made it to position of Creative Director at Corporate Voice. She was also Creative Director at Wunderman Cato Johnson. Then one fine day, she quit.
She took to creative writing the way fish take to water. She got herself a correspondence course diploma from London School of Journalism and went ahead. She's published two books so far and has two novels waiting to be published. "Dolphin Girl and other stories" is a collection of 15 short stories hovering around themes of science fiction, fantasy and humor. The inspiration stems from the Amazons, where pink river dolphins turned into women at night. Deccan Herald - a leading newspaper in Bangalore - published all 15 stories. The other book is titled "Aditya" which won an award in the CBT national competition, has been published by the Nehru Children's book Trust. This is about a 15-year-old boy who has been genetically engineered to live under the sea as well as on land.
"I've always been very interested in science and a lot of research went into the writing these books," explains Anita. One of the two books that she will publish soon is titled "Goddess of the Dandelion" and which comprises 150,000 words. The theme? How women overcome hardships and become successful. "It's loosely based on my life, where the heroine is a girl called Aiyesha, which is in fact me," she says. Based on anecdotes in her life jotted down in journals that she has maintained over the years. The second book is called "The Wild, Wicked, Wacky Adventures of Circe" - a 58,000-word fantasy set in modern times. It's about the adventures of an enchantress called Circe who was famous for changing people into monsters. A critique group in the University of Pennsylvania is reviewing these books, chapter by chapter, which Anita sends by email.
Her late father once told her, "choose between painting and writing." She chose both. "I've always painted," says Anita. In December 98, she held an exhibition of her paintings. Nudes. There were 24 of them and the theme was "Woman as Goddess." Her colorful work found many takers, but eventually, writing took precedence over painting, though she does dabble with canvases and acrylics often.
She's vibrant. A bundle of energy and highly strung. That's the way she lives life. Creativity has no boundaries and for Anita, now pushing 42, there are no stops. At the same time, there was this sneaking feeling of disappointment. Goes back to her advertising years when she was creative director. She mentioned something about things getting tough as one goes higher and that men hate women in power.
Surprising, that. In fact, we found Anita a fine and attractive person. With magical dreams and fantasies. A mind that's never switched off. In fact, we are proud to have Anita in Koramangala - "the greenest part of Bangalore" as she herself put it.
