“Sometimes, we do not get a chance to thank each one who has helped us in our Journey.”  Let the readers get a chance to know about all the important people who have played a part in this Author Journey of yours.

My formative education (till class 10) was from a Jesuit School-Loyola High in Jamshedpur. I will remain eternally grateful to Father E J Power and Father Roberts for infusing in me the love for the English Language and Literature. To my Neela kakima (aunt) for her voracious appetite for English fiction and infectious reading habits. I would look forward to our vacations in Kolkata, where I would dive into her delectable collection! To my daughter Anuta, my strongest critic and a provider of invaluable feedback from a generation far removed from mine. To my wife Saswati for her relentless encouragement for my writing pursuits, often at great personal cost. To my wonderful bunch of author friends for their beta reading, for being a sounding board, or simply helping in blue-sky gazing. Thanks, Ayan, Aashisha, Janneker, Deepti, Anupama, Mona Ushasi, Rituparna. A big thank you to my publisher Dipankar who has also been my mentor and to the hawkeye editor Indrani. To Vinita Dawra Nangia, Director Write India for providing the excellent platform, which prodded many like me and allowed our creative inks to flow. To every reader who has ever picked up my books/stories and wants to read more.

When and how did the idea of writing books came to you? Can you tell a bit about the books you have written and share a few lines from any of them?

Though I dabbled in poems in school and college, writing was a discovery by accident when I submitted a short story for a contest as a lark in 2014.

To date my short stories have appeared in 11 anthologies and my solo anthology, “it happens-Stories of Human Relationships” was launched last year. Grateful that my stories have been selected by Sudha Murty and Ravininder Singh for their curated anthologies and for the Write India contest entries by Amitav Ghosh, Ashwin Sanghi, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Vivek Shanbhag, Nayantara Sahgal, and Tuhin Sinha. 

Excerpt from ‘A Welcome Shade of Grey’ a short story on alternate sexuality from my book “it happens”-

‘This is not the person I want to be. This is not what my genes want, this is not what my body is crying out for. A man is only half-human. He is conceited and selfish. He is cruel and hates. He believes that with the power he can conquer all. I want to be a woman; kind and gentle. She is the true epitome of a complete human being. She procreates; she wins with love and elevates; she does not coerce with power and deprecates. Yet my feminine identity is trapped in a man’s body. What do I do?’ 

You have been mostly writing short stories and excel in your craft. Is it a conscious choice to work on stories only or you plan on writing a full-fledged novel sometime soon?

Thank you for your kind words. I believe that I will remain an apprentice for as long as I write, and excellence will always be one book or story away.

Though I have only short stories published to date, I have two completed novels, waiting for a publisher, and another clutch of 13-15 short stories, another anthology, which I will plan after the novel (s). 

Are you working on anything at the present you would like to share with your readers?

I am currently working on a non-fiction. Hope to write a novella too, sometime.

According to you which are the 5 books, everyone should read and also who are your top 3 Authors?

Will limit my response to English Fiction alone:

My must-read books:

1. Flowers for Algernon: Daniel Keyes
2. To Kill a Mockingbird: Harper Lee
3. The Thornbirds: Colleen McCullough
4. The Fountainhead: Ayn Rand
5. Any PG Wodehouse novel!

My top three authors:

1. PG Wodehouse
2. Ayn Rand
3. Ruskin Bond

Tell us a bit about your family, likes, and dislikes as a person.

My wife Saswati and me reside in Chennai currently. Our only daughter Anuta, lives and works in the US. 

I love reading (of course!) the theatre (having acted in and directed many), movies, and traveling. I value kindness, honesty, and positivity and get upset by cruelty, intolerance, and pretension.

Could you share few tips for Young Authors?

Be a voracious reader; imbibe everything like a sponge without getting judgmental. You can always discard it later. Make writing a daily habit, regardless of whether you love and retain or hate and discard the output. If there is a story within you, it must be told. Take feedback actively from a broad spectrum of readers, who you believe will be your target audience. Every feedback is constructive whether you like it or not. Use the feedback to improve the quality of your effort. You will need tons of discipline, optimism, and positivity in your writer’s journey. Cultivate them.

How can a writer keep the mental block or writer’s block away from his/her creativity?

First, go back to your blueprint. Perhaps it is the plot development or the sequence that is bothering you and manifesting in a “writer’s block”. If that doesn’t seem to be the problem, then maybe you are trying too hard. Creativity cannot be made to flow at gunpoint! Take a break. Engage in another creative or entertaining pursuit for a while. Your mojo will return. Please do indulge in some form of physical activity every day. You will be surprised how much your endorphins can galvanize your grey cells! Speak to someone you trust or whose opinions you value. Conversing often does help to articulate the problem and untangle the knots. Finally, start something new. Return to this pursuit later.

At Sharing Stories, we have an ongoing campaign ‘Empowering Our Kids’ where we are trying to encourage and inculcate reading habits from a young age. We are trying to pick up 20 to 30 must-read books for children and try and make them available at our library in Jaipur, also to take this initiative across the globe. Please suggest some books which you think every child should read before the age of 15 (mostly the character-defining age).

First, congratulations on this important initiative by Sharing Stories. The world of Children’s books especially in fiction has exploded in the last few years with Harry Potter becoming a household name and so many great contributions coming from Indian authors too. And of course, our mythological treasures! Here are my favorites:

1. Mahabharat
2. Ramayana
3. Alice in Wonderland
4. Matilda
5. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
6. The Book Thief
7. Black Beauty
8. Heidi
9. The Lord of the Rings
10. Aesop’s Fables
11. A Series of Unfortunate Events (1-9)
12. Charlotte’s Web
13. Enid Blyton-All books!
14. Harry Potter- All 7 books, though would recommend that these be started when the child is twelve plus as there are some fairly dark passages.

Rapid Fire Round

1. Favorite Place, Person, Food, beverage….: Any seaside resort, My family, Food and beverage-difficult-I am a gourmet! 
2. Your other Talents…. Theatre
3. Your First Love…. Movies
4. Favorite Quote…. “Carpe Diem” or Seize the Day
5. Favorite Character from a book… Karna from Mahabharat

What if Round 

1. What if you had to live with only three things all your life, what would the three things be? – Connectivity with loved ones and friends, Optimism and Wit.
2. What if you were given the power to change one thing from this world, what would you change? – Intolerance
3. What if you had all the money in this world, what would you do first? – Eradicate hunger and sickness.