The life of a college student is one of hopes, dreams and uncertainty. This is probably the most transformative period in our lives. In the face of so much unpredictability, it’s important to have mentors and inspirational figures to look up to for encouragement. One such figure might be Priyanka Khanna, who Hamilton hosted virtually on Thursday, Jan. 26 for the Department of Literature and Creative Writing’s Alumni Reading Series. During this event, Khanna read a portion of her debut novel,

All the Right People

, and fielded questions about her life and the writing process for this book.

Khanna was born in Mumbai, India and was first published at 16 in

The Hindu

, an Indian English-language newspaper that is now the second most circulated English daily in India. Later, she joined us on the Hill to attend Hamilton College where she graduated as a Sociology major and Comparative Literature minor. After graduation, Khanna earned a job in public relations for Hearst Magazines in New York, where she worked on publications such as

O

,

The Oprah Magazine

,

Harper’s Bazaar

,

CosmoGirl!

and

Seventeen

. Then, she returned to Mumbai as a frontrunner of

Vogue India

, where she worked for the next 15 years as the Feature Fashion Director. Khanna currently lives in Mumbai, where she consults on different projects in the sphere of art, design and fashion. She is a Contributing Editor at

The World of Interiors

and an advisor at Share A Book India, a non profit dedicated to empowering children through books.

All the Right People

is her first novel.

Although the passage read aloud was short, Khanna’s writing was stellar. The excerpt focused on the scene of a grand Indian wedding in Monaco: “Every inch of the Belle Epoque designed room was covered in lush green foliage and brilliantly hued tropical flowers; palm trees had been transported indoors, adding further drama to room’s high arched ceiling, suspended from wires and silk ropes, aerialists and acrobatic dancers nimbly flew, displaying their body’s athletic prowess while a Mariachi band played tinny versions of classic Hindi songs.”

The vivid imagery painted a clear picture of the wedding venue and the elaborate outfits of the partygoers, especially the bride-to-be, which pays homage to Khanna’s background writing in fashion. Her characters were a mix of the contemporary and the traditional — younger people gushing about social media and the highlights of a high-profile wedding mixed with older folks who had much more traditional views about Indian culture, especially regarding the over-the-top wedding scheme. All in all, Khanna had her audience hanging on to her every word and longing to continue after the reading was finished.

Khanna commented during the event, that writing was always a great passion of hers, one that she incorporated immensely throughout her career with pieces on art, design, fashion and culture. Although, novel writing was a longstanding dream, always seemed too daunting to pursue. She explained that the story took many drafts to perfect, as well as it required a lot of time to articulate how the characters and plot would evolve. Khanna enlisted her friends and colleagues as beta readers to gain different perspectives on her story and learn how to make it meaningful for all readers. Her novel primarily discusses three young women whose friendship is put to the test as each of their lives is struck with a prominent change. They must decide whether to fall apart and sink or learn to stick together in order to swim. As the overview states, Khanna’s book “takes [readers] into the hidden, privileged world of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Bombay, Delhi and London but tells a universal story. Of love. Of loss. Of family. Of friendship. Of difficult decisions. And of women taking control of their own lives.”

Now, as a published author, Khanna has finally accomplished her longtime goal.

All the Right People

was released in November 2022 with Penguin Random House India.