My AuthoriView

My AuthoriView is excepted below https://authoriview.com/InterviewsPre...

Tell us a little about yourself and your background?

I’m an Indian novelist, playwright, short story, non-fiction 'n articles writer, translator, a 'little' thinker and a budding philosopher in ‘Addendum to Evolution: Origins of the World by Eastern Speculative Philosophy’ that was originally published in The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal, Vol. 05 Issue 18, Summer 2004.

Born on 27 Aug 1948, and having been schooled in letter-writing, in my mid thirties, I happened to articulate my managerial ideas in thirty-odd published articles, and later penned Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel, Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of Wedlock, a novella, Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories and Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays.

Besides Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More), a ‘novel’ narrative, possibly in a new genre, and the critique Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) in the arena of non-fiction, my literary endeavours in the translation zone had been the versification of the Sanskrit epics, Vyasa’s Bhagvad-Gita as Treatise of self-help and Valmiki’s Sundara Kãnda as Hanuman’s Odyssey in contemporary English idiom,

Later, as a prodigal son, I took to my mother tongue, Telugu, to craft the short story తప్పటడుగులు (Missteps).

While my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.

MY body of work as above is in the public domain as free ebooks https://g.co/kgs/Dri6rm

More over, some of my articles on management issues, general insurance topics, literary matters, and political affairs published in The Hindu, The Economic Times, The Financial Express. The Purchase, The Insurance Times, Triveni , Boloji.com are reproduced in Academia.edu

https://independent.academia.edu/Bulu...

I, a graduate mechanical engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India, had been a Hyderabad-based Insurance Surveyor and Loss Assessor from 1986 - 2021.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

Content being a curious reader, wanting to be a writer was a far cry till I happened to become one as essayed in My 'Novel' Account of Human Possibility that can be read in this site or accessed trough the internet.

Which book have you read the most in your lifetime?

I'm more of a book savour than an voracious reader and it's the continental fiction of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert, Marcel Proust and Robert Musil et al that I've savoured the most.

Do you have any unique or quirky writing habits?

When I'm into writing, as I go about it the whole hog, all my literary babies got delivered in nine months or less.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

Raja Rao, of my maiden novel Benign Flame: Saga of Love, who goads his lover Roopa to love Sathyam her husband.

Give us an interesting fun fact about your book.

In Benign Flame, to begin with, it was as though a ‘novel’ chemistry had developed between my muse and the mood of its characters that shaped its fictional course, and soon I came to believe that I had something exceptional to offer to the world of letters, nay the world itself. So, not wanting to die till I gave it to it, I tended to go to lengths to preserve my life that was till I delivered it in nine months with a ‘top of the world’ feeling at that. Then, when one Spencer Critchley, an American critic, thought that – “It’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs” – I felt vindicated about my unique contribution.

How long does it take you to write a book?

Being a self-published author, I was not constrained to stretch my works to the publishable length or rework them to cater to the whims of the editors or the fancies of the market, and thus my writing was able to follow the dictates of the respective story / plot, the uninterrupted process of which enabled me to complete each of them numbering twelve, incidentally in nine months or less.

What do you think about the role of readers?

By the very nature of letters, as readers are not a homogenous lot, there's truism in the saying that there's a reader for every book and there's a book for every reader.

Have you experienced writer’s block? How did you get through it?

Given that life and letters have combined to impart novelty to my writing, I haven't experienced writer's block as such but just the same as creativity is not inexhaustible, I'm seemingly done with my muse.

What do you plan to write next?

Save an event-driven article on occasion, probably I'm done with my writing in which seemingly my life has crystallized itself before death could dissipate it.

What is your most treasured possession?

My most treasured possessions have been the loving glances of all those women that have made my life’s journey a joyous sojourn, and to whom I have dedicated my Prey on the Prowl - A Crime Novel.

Who or what has been the greatest love of your life?

It's the love itself that has been the greatest love of my life.

Which living person do you most dislike?

Being human, I too am prone for likes and dislikes but I tend not to nurse dislikes if only to minimize the negativity in my consciousness.

What is your greatest fear?

As I've nothing much to lose, I have nothing much to fear.

What is your greatest regret?

My greatest regret is that I shouldn't have troubled my parents - Peraiah Sastry and Kamakshi - more so my father so much but thankfully one of the boons of my writing has been to be able to picture them in my Glaring Shadow - A Stream of Consciousness Novel.

If you could choose to be a character in a book, who would it be?

If I choose to be a character in a book, it would be Raja Rao of Benign Flame: Saga of Love whom I rather fashioned after me.

What is your favorite journey?

The journey of love.

What do you do as a hobby?

I tend to examine the perplexing life in all its complexity

Give us an interesting fun fact about your book.

This repeat question, of Q6, so to say, has afforded an opportunity to my Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life to depict the the novel link between life and literature.

In this poignant tale, Gautam was destined to sacrifice his wife Sneha's chastity to salvage his business but my predicament lay in musing about a credible plot to make him induce her into the act. That was even as the time for it was fast nearing in the narrative, which incidentally was shortly after the American invasion of Afghanistan in Oct 2001. However, one evening around then, when I was hugely upset after learning about the betrayal of an unscrupulous character that portended to undermine my career, I recalled at length that owing to the double-cross by Pakistan's ISI, Abdul Haq, the then Pashtun leader, who was trying to create a popular uprising in Afghanistan against the Taliban, had lost his life at the latter’s hands. So, even as my career jeopardy seemed trivial in comparison to Haq’s pathetic end by perfidy, my muse conceived to plot Sneha’s fall on the path of Manian’s betrayal of her man.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

I strive to make my writing original and credible.

What do you like to do when you are not writing?

Get on with life.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

They may mind the saying that one cannot be a good writer without being a good reader and it's also right for them to wait till writing beckons them to write.