There were plenty of things that I wanted to research before beginning to write The Wedding Tamasha to help make this a believable and more realistic story.
Below are the top 3 things that I looked up during the writing of this novel:
1. About Mexican cafes
From finding out about a Mexican place in the Chicago business district that served black salsa, to checking out names and videos of the dishes I wanted Julie’s Villa Mexican cafe from the book to have, it was a lot of fun when I finally came up with what I needed for a cafe that served authentic Mexican food.
2. About the Kerala sadya or the wedding feast
It was Kairali Channel’s show called Flavours of India with Lekshmi Nair that gave me a good idea of the effort a Kerala wedding feast or sadya involved. Although I’d relished several sadyas in all these years, I had never entered the kitchen where the magic happened. I had never ever seen a sadya being prepared. The notes I took from the video about the room, the kind of vessels used, and the preparation itself gave me several great ideas on how to present that scene in my book. Here’s the video if you’d like a glimpse of what I saw. Can you feel the heat in the room like i did, just by watching the video?
To check out the novel, visit: The Wedding Tamasha
3. About chefs and the restaurant business
One of my inspirations for this book was Manu Chandra. This impressive 35-year-old chef was what I wanted for Niru to be like.
Here’s the article that caught my attention: In the Kitchen with Manu Chandra
So, that’s the story of my research in a nutshell. But like they say, less than ten percent of what you research actually makes it into a book. 
And so, a few nuggets like these made their way into my book and helped me shape it the way I wanted to. I hope it turned into an enriching story experience for you, dear reader. 
Do let me know what you thought about this post and whether it piqued your interest.
