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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Prahlad Kakar says he began Adman Madman: Unapologetically Prahlad by dictating stories, but the loose, repetitive result did not sound like him. He switched to writing chapters by hand, with co-writer Rupangi Sharma editing and tightening each draft before he finalized it. Kakar described the process as a two-year effort and said he approached his own past as an observer rather than trying to tell it as a straightforward chronology.
Why Kakar abandoned dictation
Kakar’s wife, Mitali, encouraged him to write down the stories he regularly told. He first tried dictating the memoir, but said the result felt “flabby, repetitive, and loose.” In an interview with Scroll.in’s Saurabh Sharma published November 30, 2024, he explained: “I tried dictating the book, which didn’t work because the articulation became flabby, repetitive, and loose.”
He decided that handwriting would better preserve the way he spoke. “The way the sentences are constructed here is how I actually talk,” he said in the same interview. The New Indian Express also reported in February 2024 that Mitali encouraged him to write and that he moved from dictation to handwriting.
How he and Rupangi Sharma worked together
Kakar drafted one chapter at a time
Kakar wrote the chapters longhand, working through them one by one. He sometimes took a break as if the book were already finished before returning to the work.
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Sharma edited, then Kakar finalized
Co-writer Rupangi Sharma edited and tightened Kakar’s chapters, then returned them to him to finalize. The process combined his handwritten drafts and voice with her editorial shaping; it was not simply a dictated transcript.
The pandemic changed how they discussed structure
The pandemic interrupted the work. Kakar and Sharma shifted their structural discussions to Google Docs and video calls, according to Kakar’s account in the Scroll.in interview.
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What Kakar said about the book’s length and timeline
Kakar told Scroll.in that the project took two years. He said the initial plan was 40,000 words, but his manuscript reached 85,000 words before cuts. He also said he had to truncate the material and that the final decade of his life did not make it into the book.
Those figures describe Kakar’s account of the project, not independently verified publishing statistics. They help explain the editorial challenge he described: shaping a large store of stories into a memoir while leaving substantial material out.
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Writing as an observer, not a strict chronology
Kakar described a shift in perspective as he worked on the memoir: “When I started working on it, I became an observer of my life as a fly on the wall.” The line captures his stated approach to memory—watching his life as it unfolded rather than only recounting it from the standpoint of the present.
A separate Society Achievers interview describes the book as non-chronological. That is a characterization of the book’s structure, while the fly-on-the-wall perspective is Kakar’s own explanation of how he approached writing about his life.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The method behind Adman Madman
Kakar’s account traces a clear sequence: Mitali encouraged him to record his stories; dictation failed to capture his voice; longhand gave him a more natural way to build sentences; and Sharma helped shape the chapters before he finalized them. The resulting memoir grew beyond its initial word-count target, and Kakar said he viewed his past from the position of an observer rather than forcing it into a strictly chronological account.
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