Why I Love India’s Top Non-Fiction Writer

And it's not just because she is a woman.

At the Bangalore launch of Rujuta Diwekar’s new book. Diwekar and her editor Chiki Sarkar.

I can’t say I’ve read too many of nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar’s books but I understand why she is India’s top selling non-fiction writer and respect her wisdom and success. I really like her and there are many reasons for that.

I like all plain-talking Indian women who don’t take BS from anyone. I like that she’s not obsessed with diet and nutrition trends. I subscribe to her ‘everything in moderation’ philosophy or, as she puts it, “never do anything drastic”. She wants you to move your butt and go get your own glass of water and do your own basic chores instead of being waited upon hand and foot; she likes ghar ka khana; she’s funny, friendly and likely to teach you a thing or two when you listen to or read her. She answers all your questions seriously and thoughtfully, never dismissing any query. Her confidence and zest are contagious.

“A lot of women have been led to believe that if we were a size smaller or a few years younger, if we were just lesser than everything that we currently are…whether it is our volume, our laughter, our thoughts, our opinions…if we could just tone it down a little bit, maybe we could find more love more acceptance and more ease of life…obviously none of that happens,” she said at the Bangalore launch of her new book The Commonsense Diet yesterday. I went because I was invited by my favourite Chiki Sarkar, founder of Juggernaut Books.

Confession: I’m more addicted to Chiki’s reels about the publishing world than Rujuta’s diet and exercise reels but we will save that for another substack. Sarkar has published four of Diwekar’s 10 books. I think Diwekar understands that Sarkar is a genius book marketer even more so if she gets excited about you/your book.

In a country where English books sell 3,000 copies with difficulty, Diwekar has sold some 1.75 million copies of her books making her India’s largest selling non-fiction writer, so her journey is worthy of your attention even if you disagree with her dietary advice.

At one point during the launch Diwekar said, “When I started working in 1999 only women had insecurities about their bodies. As a woman I want equality in every possible way and I think the only way in which we’ve got it is that men are now just as insecure about their bodies….Other than that I don’t think there is equality in any area.” If you’re a reader of this substack you know I agree with this last sentence.

Diwekar eats poha or sewai upma for breakfast. That’s it. No experimentation. She alternates between these two dishes. I’m like that too, the world’s most boring eater. These days I eat one boiled egg and one dosa for breakfast every day. No variation. The husband just can’t understand this, but I don’t have time to think about what I would or would not like to have every day. And if it suits me, why change it?

I love that Diwekar has a gentle way of nudging Indian parents to rethink their ambitions for their children. She doesn’t encourage you to obsess about marks and academics. One of the reasons she picked sports science and nutrition was because it didn’t require 90% + marks to get admission and she wishes that all our teenagers find opportunities to follow their paths irrespective of their marks.

I learned a few more things about her at yesterday’s conversation that I didn’t know—and that made me like her more.

Trekking is her great passion, she’s off on a solo trek to Morocco soon. She’s married to a man who runs a trekking company that organises treks in the Himalayas. One of her first treks was after the 12th standard when her father took her and her sister (who had just completed her 10th) to the starting line of a trek they had signed up for. Her dad dropped his two daughters and their friends via train and bus to Manali from Mumbai, and told them to find their way back after the trek. “It was good and liberating,” she says.

She once sat in a bank waiting room for 42 afternoons until the fed up manager gave her time to make a pitch for what he thought would be a hopeless loan. This was after she told her client Anil Ambani that she had met the bank manager and he had refused to give her a loan.

AA: “How many times did he say no?”

RD: “Once…”

AA: “Ask him till he says yes.”

I know you’re thinking AA and money advice? But this was way back then and it worked for Diwekar.

She didn’t know what size zero was when the whole Kareena Kapoor-Tashan-size zero conversation began in 2008. When an TV interviewer asked her a question about size zero she had to quickly texted her husband to ask, ‘What’s size zero?”. He Googled the term and explained it to her. She says it became an “aspirational size" because “sales teams discovered that when women fit into smaller sizes they buy more clothes”.

She employs a cook who comes to the office to make an evening snack and khichdi for the office because people spend so much time in the office and they need to eat healthy. I find this very endearing.

In summary, what’s not to love about Diwekar?