Vibha Batra on her latest book, Spotless, a novel in verse

Vibha Batra’s latest book, Spotless (Hachette India), a novel in verse for young adults, began its journey in a very different form. “A couple of years ago, I was bouncing a couple of ideas off my illustrator, and I shared this story with her. She told me it would work well as a graphic novel,” recalls the Chennai-based advertising consultant and writer, the author of over 30 books in multiple genres.

So, Vibha began approaching the story with that form in mind, and then hit a sudden hurdle: “My illustrator retired, and left me holding the baby, so to speak,” she recalls.

Knowing that she really wanted to write this book, she began working on it, discovering, much to her surprise, that the story spilt out in verse. “It was bizarre, because I have never written a novel in verse before,” says Vibha, a self-confessed “total poetry nerd” who found herself “bingeing on verse novels to write this one: Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, Jason Reynolds Long Way Down, and anything Sarah Crossan writes.”

While she did face her fair share of detractors as she embarked on Spotless — people who would tell her that young adults don’t read anyway and that a novel in verse could be perceived as scary by them — she steadily plodded away.

“It all came out in a gush,” says Vibha, admitting, however, that the editing process was intense. “We pulled all-nighters, worked on weekends, and through illnesses. The entire book was rewritten while we were editing it,” she says of the book, which came out last September.

A writer and a reader

The book cover
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Special Arrangement

Vibha, who has always been an avid reader, grew up in Kolkata in a home filled with books. “My maternal grandfather was an author and a poet, so it started there, and I could not stop,” she says, recalling how she would want to read nearly anything she set her eyes on, “the labels on shampoo bottles, bags, the oily paper that samosas would come wrapped in. I just love words, think of them as my friends.”

She began writing as a child, “a lot of short stories and poetry that I used to submit to Tinkle, but I never heard back from them. So, it was just dispatching this creativity into a dark hole,” says Vibha, who would soon begin funnelling all her creativity into an advertising career, which kickstarted in Mumbai in the early 2000s. This experience, she believes, played a role in shaping her future writing. “Copywriting has a lot of exaggeration, hyperbole, alliteration, similes and metaphors, so it was all training for me,” she says.

In 2007, when her grandfather passed away, she decided to translate one of his books into English. “It was very tough to do because it was on the Upanishads, and I was scared of making mistakes,” she says. It took her nearly a year and a half to finish, but it ended up getting picked up quickly by Rupa Publications, she recalls. “It was like a lion tasting blood. There was no looking back after that.”

Raga and beyond

Spotless tells the story of Raga Rachel Mathew, a 14-year-old girl, who, in addition to the usual pangs of adolescence, must learn how to deal with an unexpected, unnamed skin condition.

“It appeared, the white spot, right in the middle of my forehead, neatly bifurcating my life into Before and After, and I stopped being like anybody else,” writes Vibha, who thinks of the condition as “a metaphor for a lot of curveballs that life might throw at us.” Through this character — a girl who was once confident and sure of herself but now cringes every time she looks in the mirror — she attempted to explore “questions about self-worth, belonging and identity.”

While Spotless largely focuses on Raga’s journey as she attempts to come to terms with this complicated condition, it also lingers on larger themes such as the unique complexities of mixed-culture families, the impact of bullying on mental health, the demands of constant caregiving, and the messiness of female friendships.

“Yes, they are important, but they can also be damaging and take a toll on you,” says Vibha, who took nearly a year to write this book, which has been illustrated by Mia Jose. And while it is too early to talk about her next project, she says, writing this one has made her want to repeat the process. “I feel like writing a verse novel again.”

Spotless, priced at ₹499, is available on Amazon and major bookstores

Published – March 18, 2026 04:58 pm IST