Q.1 “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’.

Undoubtedly, my mother, who took me to the municipal library even before I could actually read, to rid me of my immense boredom when I was five years old. That was the catalyst. Thereafter, I had some marvellous teachers, especially in my more senior years in school, who taught me the wonders of Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy. I also had a close-knit group of friends, who were probably on the nerdy side, amongst whom, we all swopped our books.

Q.2 How and when did you first realize your calling for writing books?

I have always had a penchant for books, whether fiction or non-fiction, as, growing up in the Eighties, it was really the only form of entertainment for me in the small town that I grew up in. So, I would say that whilst I believe that we all have a natural flair for something, it is only through practise that it reveals itself. Mine just so happened to be writing.

Q.3 Please tell us a bit about your book titled “A Dalliance with Destiny ” and share a few lines from it.

Spanning a century, and set in South Africa and India, the novel captures the odyssey of a seemingly brash man in his thirties, who fights to remain lucid in what appears to be an irrational world. Whilst everyone around him is still celebrating the euphoric entry of his country into the rest of the democratic world, he is at odds with it. After a series of distressing experiences, he attempts to extinguish the raison d’etre of his angst by embarking on an increasingly mystical journey to India with an unconventional best friend.

“Love him, hate him, he was what he was, making no apologies for it. This simply was an ugly, horrid planet, lying in a paltry third position from the sun, rather nondescript as numbers went. And it had been a wretched life for him so far. So, he chose to be boorish, his shield against the world. Thirty-two-year-old Milan Gansham sat immersed in his usual glum introspection aboard a South African Airways flight to India, his cheeks somewhat puffed up in tandem with his reticent emotions. The undulating cloud in his chest played such a chameleon-like role in relation to his emotions, always palpably felt. It was his very soul that needed gentrifying.

Sandwiched between a fat woman and a waspish man whose mouth stank of spicy poppadums, two stereotypical caricatures of the Indian society of yesteryear, he was in an economy class seat, hurtling through the air at nine hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, eleven thousand metres above sea level, halfway across the Indian Ocean. He was escaping the world, and what better way than a sojourn to India to ‘find’, or perhaps even lose, himself? After all, wasn’t the subcontinent the hackneyed escape for all seekers, lost or found, or even somewhere in the middle?”

Q.4 According to you which are the 5 books that everyone should read and who are your top 3 Authors and what impact did they have in your journey as a writer?

TITLES:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird (To learn about courage.)
2. Autobiography of a Yogi (To introduce one to spirituality.)
3. Shantaram (For a mix of introspection and thriller.)
4. Great Expectations (To appreciate the sweeping nature of 19th Century literature.)
5. Lolita (Purely for the sheer lyricism in Vladmir Nabokov’s prose.)

AUTHORS:

1. Thomas Hardy: For his ability to capture such depth of emotion in his characters.
2. Gregory David Roberts: For his ability to write an 800 page book in first person but still keep a reader enthralled (considering the protagonist is in each and every scene.)
3. Charles Dickens: To link up the experiences of the protagonist via passages in his novel that are many chapters apart, in some kind of literary tying-up of subplots.

Q.5 What inspires you to write? Where do you get the information or ideas for your books? 

I find that my love for writing is an innate talent. The drive is almost internal only, as the demand for reading has definitely declined, especially with there being so many other forms of entertainment. Writing creates a fantastical world, one which the reader can become a part of as he/she reads. A lot of my research is taken from my own experiences and travels, but obviously hyped up to remove any resemblance of autobiographical content.

Q.6 Could you share a few tips for budding Authors and aspiring writers?

Writing the novel is only the first part of the ‘struggle’. It is also the challenge of getting it published, and, even then, it’s about the effort that goes into marketing, which needs to be intense, for the book to be a success. But the rewards, once received, are truly sweet. Also, one should only opt for writing as a full-blown career if there is continuity in earnings from the sales of one’s book. Otherwise, it is imperative to have a fallback career, which i keep as an engineer and economist.

Q.7 What has been your most cherished experience as a writer? Which is your best-preferred genre?

I cherish the literature festivals and meeting like-minded people with a love for literature, who you can engage with for hours about a subject that you love.

In terms of genre, I love ‘magical realism’. I prefer ‘real’ literature to pulp fiction.

Q.8 What were the struggles and learnings you experienced while writing your book?

For me, the struggle came about in editing the book into a concise but lengthy. Through my editing, I ‘deleted’ about 66% of my novel, whittling it down to 400 pages in the end. Also, finding a suitable publisher is a difficult task, and can take months and sometimes, even years.

Q.9 Are you working on anything at present that you would like to share with your readers? What are your future plans?

Well, I straddle many careers, primarily using my engineering and economics backgrounds to develop infrastructure. This pays for my livelihood. However, on the literary side, I am being ‘pushed’ to write another novel, when my initial intent was to be a ‘one hit wonder’.

Q.10 At Sharing Stories, we have an ongoing campaign ‘Let’s Empower Our Kids’. Please suggest some books here that you would want your child to read before the age of 15 which could help him in understanding certain dimensions of human life like empathy, sympathy, relationships, etc.

1. To Kill a Mockingbird.
2. Great Expectations.
3. Far from the Madding Crowd.
4. Train to Pakistan.
5. A Dalliance with Destiny.

Rapid Fire Round

Favourite Place: India, of course!!!

Actor & Actress – Amitabh Bachchan; Parveen Babi and Zeenat Aman (Purely for aesthetics).

Person: My mother.

Food: Dal, rice and bhindi.
Beverage: Red Bull (watermelon flavour, especially after a run.)

Your other Talents apart from writing…. 

 Your First Love: My mother (my only love).

4. Favourite Quote: ‘Blood is thicker than water.’

5. Favourite Character from a book: Geppetto from Pinocchio. (He made me feel ‘safe’.)

What if Round 

1. What if you had to live with only three things all your life, what would the three things be? 

1. Family.
2. Books.
3. To live near water.

2. What if you were given the power to change one thing from this world, what would you change?

My birth on the wrong continent. I should’ve been born in India.

3.  What if you had all the money in this world, what would you do first?

Definitely a global voyage on the Queen Mary. After that, i would focus purely on philanthropic endeavours… and more writing of fiction.