BENGALURU: With her bubbly personality and characteristic humour, Prajakta Koli has charmed her way into the hearts of many Gen-Zs and millennials who grew up watching her funny YouTube Videos.
After nearly 10 years of being a content creator and starring in the popular show Mismatched whose third season released recently, she’s turning her attention towards something that she’s always loved to do – write, with her upcoming novel, Too Good To Be True. “I grew up journaling every single day and couldn’t wait to get back home so I could write what happened in school that day. It was also one of my favourite parts of making content – writing down sketches and creating characters,” she says.
Koli’s novel follows the story of Avani, a bookworm who loves romance novels but is a cynic when it comes to finding love in real life. What happens when she meets Aman, a seemingly flawless man who seems to have stepped out of a romance novel himself? “Because of the life she’s had, Avani is a ‘romance cynic’, while Aman is ‘too good to be true’. It’s all about how Avani and Aman find their balance with her trust issues and his general flawlessness,” she explains.
The novel, which started off as a screenplay, has gone through countless iterations and drafts to be what it is now. “During the lockdown, I started ideating on concepts I wanted to make into films and shows. The book was never a plan. I just started writing like I would a journal and a few chapters started looking like a book. It took me a year for the first draft and edits kept going on till last week. My editors kept saying ‘Prajakta, the book needs to go to press’ and I’d say ‘I know I know one last change’,” she laughs.
With Koli recently announcing her engagement with long-term partner Vrishank Khanal, the one question on the minds of her fans was how much of this book’s love story is based on real life? Koli laughs, “No, nothing! The only thing is that Aman has brown eyes and dimples and Vrishank has them, too. Other than that, they’re not the same at all.”
The novel has received a huge response from audiences, reaching No.1 on Amazon India’s bestseller list within 24 hours of opening for pre-orders. “When I woke up at 8 am, we were already on top, which was just mad,” she says.
As all good romances do, Koli hopes that her book leaves readers feeling hopeful, “For me, a romance [book] has to be aspirational. If I wanted it to be like real life, why would I go to a book? I must have read around 200 romance books since 2022 and there’s just something about the hope of ‘this might happen to me’. The joy that comes with knowing the characters end up coming together is what makes me happy, even if it is unrealistic.”
Speaking about Season 3 of her Netflix drama Mismatched which came out recently, she says, “I love that I’ve been Dimple [her character in the show] for more than five years now, and still, when I went on set for the new season, there was so much I didn’t know about her.” Explaining her character’s growth on the show, she continues, “The fact that nothing has worked out for her so far can be jarring but I love how she’s gone about it. She’s always been averse to being defined by a relationship, but this season, she puts her guard down a bit for love to flow in.”