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How did you become an author and get published? Share your experience.
It’s all there in my essay, “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility”, present in this site and in the net, that one may find interesting as well as illustrative.
Can you explain your writing process? Do you prefer to create an outline and plan beforehand, or do you prefer to write more spontaneously and organically?
The characteristic of my writing process has been that once an outline gets formed with the germination of an idea and as I set out to give it a novel form, my expansive muse enables me to further my endeavour with its spontaneity, ably assisted by the characters in the making.
Tell us what you enjoy most about writing [genre].
Being a language lover, it's the ecstasy of expression that writing affords which thrills my soul, and same is the case with reading.
Would you like readers to have any specific takeaway from your book?
It’s nobody’s case to advocate adultery but in my maiden novel Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Raja Rao’s approach to the tricky issue could be a takeaway for women in liaison, and that is –
“Roopa, you know I love you, but still it’s only a part of our life – yours as well as mine - and that is the reality of our life, and of what avail is all our love if it won’t bring happiness to our lives. If not for his sake, at least for our accord, love your husband and make him happy so that we can be happier ourselves. Moreover if you are morose in your house, there is no way I can be lively in my home, in spite of Sandhya.”
Share some advice for aspiring authors. What advice would you give to your younger self?1. What is your favorite line from your book?
Instead of seeking the joy of seeing one's 'name in print', it is better to see if writing chooses him or her to afford joy to readers, and the aspiring authors may try to induce writing to make them writers by reading as many books as they can and examining the life as much as possible.
Innumerable are my favorite lines in my books, but a couple of them are -
"Thus, with nothing left to inspire possession, and having gained to make it difficult, won’t she leave me pondering over her past contours in her rotund presence?" - Benign Flame: Saga of Love.
"While he stood rooted lost in her charms, sensing that she had stolen his heart, she bowed her head as though in guilt." - Jewel-less Crown:Saga of Life.
To date, what is your favorite (or most difficult) chapter you have ever written?
In Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, my second novel, the plot demanded that the protagonist had to compromise his wife’s chastity to avert their financial ruin but how to contrive a situation in which a man is forced to part with the honour of the woman he deeply cherished was the creative challenge I faced from the outset. Though the narrative was nearing that stage of the story and in spite of raking my brain, filled for the best part with man-woman chemistry, I was unable to perceive a convincing situation. But then, as life and literature are seemingly in tandem, at the threshold of a new chapter in the couple’s life, as if to provide me the clue to solve the perplexing problem in its fateful chapter, Victims of Deceit, someone had breached my trust that threatened to jeopardize my professional interests.
Was there anything you had to research for the book?
As I was Semitic-naïve like most Hindus, I had to begin from the genesis to form my non-fictional ‘Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More)’ that's in the public domain along with my body of work of twelve free ebooks in varied genres.
What other hobbies do you have outside of writing?
At various various stages of my life, I happened to engage myself, rather passionately, in reading great books, playing good bridge, listening to soulful music and finally in writing original articles and creative books. I may say the value of a hobby is that it won’t let the vicissitudes of life significantly affect one’s life.
Do you have any personal connection to the story or characters?
The book dedication, of my Glaring Shadow – A stream of consciousness novel, to “Sekhu, my elder boy for his literary course correction of this 'stream of consciousness' work to which I had lent some of my life and times” is a giveaway.
