Kubbra Sait talks about turning a writer with ‘Open Book: Not Quite A Memoir’

The actor talks about the challenges of reliving some of the darkest moments of her life while writing the book | Kubbra Sait talks about turning a writer with ‘Open Book: Not Quite A Memoir’ OR

Though she is not explicit about it, Kubbra Sait seems like an optimist. She chooses to see the spot of light, however tiny that may be, at the end of a tunnel than be gripped by darkness. When I call her to discuss about her ironically titled memoir, Open Book: Not Quite A Memoir (Harper Collins), she is in Udhaipur, Rajasthan, nursing a twisted elbow that resulted from from an accident. She is unsure if she should head back home to Mumbai to recover or wait longer. She is guilty for having stalled the shoot. Yet, despite the mishap, she chooses to focus on the “special feeling” of having written a book (which released earlier this week).

“I am excited and happy. I am also feelingnervousabout doing something for the first time,” she says, “Few people who have read the book called it honest.”

Even the manner in which this book was conceived reflects a sense of optimism. Kubbra was stuck indoors, like most people , during the pandemic. The people she followed online were either making banana bread or dalgona coffee. “I was happy with Americano. I tried baking the bread. But it wasn’t adding purpose to my life.”

Everything seemed uncertain. “Most people weren’t sure if they were going to make it through the pandemic, right? So, if I had to die, I realised I had a story to tell before that.”

After deciding to write a book, she promptly asked her literary agent for a ghostwriter because she thought that was how all memoirs were written. But her literary agent, who had read some of her autobiographical nuggets on Kommune, an artists’ collective, advised her to write on her own.

“I wrote the first few lines about my teeth. About howdon’t have wisdom teeth at all. I don’t even have the roots for them. So, I wrote, ‘Whatever you are going to read in this book are the unwise decisions I took in my life.’ When I sent this to Harper Collins, they were happy.”

Kubbra writes about some of the darkest moments of her lifeincluding the bullying she faced in school and being sexually abused by an acquaintance. “But when recalling these incidents was hard, I wrote about something else and returned when I felt more comfortable to write about them. I knew that nobody was forcing me to write. I wanted to tell my story.”