About The Author
Shunali Khullar Shroff is a Mumbai-based writer and author whose work spans fiction, essays and cultural commentary. Her writing has appeared in numerous leading publications over the years, where she has explored everything from womanhood, parenting, popular culture, art, travel and the absurdities of modern Indian life.
Shunali is best known for her novel Love in the Time of Affluenza, praised by Kevin Kwan and Manu Joseph for its razor-sharp satire and original voice. Her earlier memoir Battle Hymn of a Bewildered Mother remains a favourite among the over-schooled and under-slept. She is also the co-host of Not Your Aunty, a popular podcast where nothing is sacred and everything is up for discussion.
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Also Read: Book Review: The Wrong Way Home by Shunali Khullar Shroff – A Heartfelt, Witty, and Inspiring Read
Interview
Q) The Wrong Way Home explores rebuilding after personal and professional upheaval. What was the first spark that led you to this story?
I began noticing the increasing number of divorces and uncouplings around me, with many women choosing singlehood in their 40s for various reasons. Life is complicated at any age, but even less if you’re a single woman and no longer officially young. Starting over at that age comes with both freedom and responsibility: you must fend for yourself not only emotionally, financially, but also socially. And you must rearrange everything you thought life would look like. We grow up assuming we will find a companion for life, and you keep thinking you have time. Then one day, society has quietly stamped you past your sell-by-date. So these are some of the things I’d been noticing and I decided to write about a woman who was going through this journey.
The title itself is intriguing. What does “the wrong way home” mean to you on a personal level?
I have an interesting story behind the title. My friend and author Moni Mohsin and I were catching up over a quick meal. I told her I was struggling to come up with a title for my novel. She asked me about the premise and the next thing I know, she’d come up with The Wrong Way Home as a possible title. On a personal level, the title resonated with me because I am an impossibly optimistic person, much to my own annoyance, and when things are going wrong for me, I always assume everything will somehow work out in the end.
Q) Was Nayantara inspired by real people or experiences, or did she evolve organically as you wrote?
Nayantara was purely imagined on paper. But she refused to behave from the start. I used to think writers exaggerated when they said they had no control over their characters. But with Nayantara, I have truly experienced this. I had someone else in mind, someone as vulnerable but softer, instantly loveable, but she just kept asserting herself.
Q) Nayantara makes mistakes, poor decisions, and choices driven by emotion. Why was it important for you to show growth that isn’t perfect?
Because growth isn’t tidy. There is pain and chaos involved. And emotions blur intuition and logic. Your survival instinct convinces you that every wrong action and decision makes sense. So you’re trying to fix your life as you go along but because you’re leading with emotion and ego, and you end up making it messier.
Q) Did you ever struggle with letting Nayantara fail, knowing readers often expect strong female characters to “have it together”?
Yes, I find that problematic that most strong lead characters, unless it’s a psychological thriller or a murder mystery, are expected to have it together. Most women I know are juggling doubt, guilt, fatigue, responsibility, and hope all at once. Strength doesn’t mean clarity, it often means enduring confusion. I just wanted to write a woman who’s allowed to falter so other women feel seen, not judged.
Q) At what point in the story did you feel Nayantara truly came home to herself?
When she realizes that when you live for appearances, you cheat nobody but yourself. The moment she stops performing and starts being honest with herself, things shift.
Q) Rishi plays a grounding, almost conscience-like role. What does friendship mean to you, and how did you shape Rishi’s character?
Rishi grew out of a few friendships in my life — particularly from my early 20s. These are friends who’ve been steady, honest, kind and gently corrective. To me, true friendship isn’t about parasailing or bungee jumping together, I’m sure that has its place, but it goes deeper. It’s someone who listens, who reminds you who you are, and who keeps showing up even when their own life is messy. That was the moral centre I wanted him to hold in the book. I wanted someone to anchor Nayantara and Rishi felt like the right person to do that.
Q) Vikram’s presence is calm, mature, and purpose-driven. Was it a conscious decision to avoid a dramatic or trope-heavy romance?
Yes, it was a conscious choice. I didn’t want the romance to feel cinematic or emotionally overblown, because real connection rarely arrives with violins. I wanted Vikram to be the opposite of what Nayantara desires in a man and yet he is what she needs, even if she doesn’t recognize that for a long time. Vikram represents steadiness, purpose and the kind of emotional maturity that isn’t always visible in your twenties and thirties. He isn’t exciting in a conventional sense. And he isn’t rescuing Nayantara. He is someone who makes her reflect on her choices, as much as she fights it.
Q) Nayantara’s bond with her mother is deeply moving. How much of that relationship reflects your own understanding of motherhood and aging parents?
The mother–daughter dynamic is such a foundational relationship, it shapes who the daughter becomes in her adult life. I also drew from observing how these relationships soften and shift as parents age. You spend your twenties and thirties building a career and a life, and then — almost in a trice — you notice they’ve grown older. It’s unnerving, and yet it shifts something inside you. That emotional undercurrent was important for me to explore in the book.
Q) The book beautifully balances ambition, heartbreak, business, family, and purpose. How did you ensure none of these themes overshadowed the others?
I can’t pretend it was pure craft. A lot of the balance came from instinct — and from the sharp editorial eye of my friend Faiza, who made sure we kept the momentum . Keep the page turning was her guidance throughout.
Q) You explore the PR world with honesty, pressure, politics, failures. How much of that came from lived experience?
Crossing over from journalism, while still in my twenties, I worked as a publicist for a few years. This gave me a ringside view of image-building, spin and the business of reputation. The industry has changed, of course, but the psychology hasn’t. Friends who still work in PR filled in the new details, the rest is a blend of memory and observation.
Q) Landour and Bombay almost feel like characters themselves. How important was setting in shaping Nayantara’s emotional journey?
Both Bombay and Landour have a different charge. Bombay inspires you, seduces you, sometimes rewards you in the material sense, but it is also relentless and demanding. Landour is comfort, contentment, it is what you choose when you confront difficult questions about life and what really matters. The two places mirror Nayantara’s inner journey — the noise of ambition, and the quiet reckoning that follows.
Q) The tone remains light and witty even while addressing serious themes. How do you strike that balance as a writer?
I don’t consciously try to keep the tone light, I think humour is simply how I process the world. And so, in my writing it isn’t there to undercut the serious themes, but to make them bearable — for me and for the reader. The entire human experience is a little absurd. You distance yourself from it and you begin to see it clearly. It’s how some of us cope.
Q) Were there any scenes you found particularly difficult to write or let go of?
There was this one scene where I’d written about her looking for her father in the art, books and things he’d left behind in the Landour home. She is sitting quite literally with his absence, because loss revisits you through different stages in life. I wanted to explore that. It was a moving scene, but it belonged in a different novel.
Q)What do you hope readers take away from Nayantara’s journey once they close the book?
I hope readers feel less alone in their confusion. Life doesn’t unfold in straight lines, you don’t suddenly become wise and self-assured one day. We carry our contradictions with us. If the book leaves readers with a sense that reinvention can be awkward, painful, funny and necessary all at once, I’ll be glad. And I hope they remember that invisibility is a social construct, not a destiny.
Q) How has writing The Wrong Way Home changed you as a person or storyteller? What does “home” mean to you now, after writing this book?
Writing this novel made me think deeply about what we call “home.” Earlier, I may have thought of it as geography, family or structure. Now I see it more as an inner settling — a point where you stop performing quite so much for the world. As a storyteller, it’s made me more patient with ambiguity. People rarely arrive at tidy resolutions. You’re always WIP.
Q) Can readers expect more stories centered on introspective, layered female protagonists from you? Will there be Nayantara’s and Vikram’s story as part 2?
I suspect I’ll always be drawn to layered women in search of their identities. My previous novel was about Natasha (Affluenza), a perfect life on paper but restless inside and utterly exhausted by the performance of privilege. As for a Part 2 of this novel, I don’t know yet. I tend to let characters walk ahead of me rather than drag them back onstage. If Nayantara has more to say, she’ll find me.
Q) Some Writing tips for aspiring authors?
Read widely. Pay attention to how people actually speak and behave. Don’t be precious, don’t chase “beautiful writing” and do chase emotional truth. Rewrite more than you think you need to. And trust that doubt is part of the process, it means you care about getting it right.
Q) A message for all the readers.
I’m deeply grateful to anyone who spends time in my world and with my words. Books are quiet companions and it means a great deal to me when a reader chooses mine to walk alongside them. Thank you for reading with openness and curiosity.
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