.::Song Of The Little Road::.

In the memory of a blog that was updated quite regularly until a month back, I'm taking up the tag by Aloi which is nearly two months old. Thanks Aloi for some fodder for thought; I seem to be starved of it for quite some time now. Here are eight of the many weird things about me:-

1. I do not like speaking unless it's absolutely necessary or enjoyable; I studiously hate small talk. The written word can claim so much more pith and consequence than speech that the latter seems almost mundane and unnecessary in comparison.
2. I love walking. It helps me clear my head and think of solutions I might not be able to think of otherwise.
3. I love Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and can listen to it for hours on end. In fact, I almost never change to another song once I put it on.
4. I am Indian and I do not understand cricket. Period.
   
5. Whether in words or in colors, I do not like capturing things that are apparently and easily beautiful. I rather like to capture things in a way which reveals smaller beauties that are concealed beneath the surface of routine and are difficult to capture.
6. I love good books. Someone once told me that reading a good book ten times is better than reading ten bad books; I would make the count hundred.
7. I've a thing for Bengali language, literature and culture. I wish to travel the length and breadth of Bengal someday.
8. I'm extremely non-judgmental. If I love something, I praise it heartily. If I don't like something, I pack up and move on. Different people want different things from life, and it is best not to try to stick to the rut of our opinions too much. My opinions are anyways not precious to me; I try to argue against them and refine them all the time.

In keeping with the good graces of some of my fellow bloggers, I do not wish to tag anyone in particular. If this tag strikes your fancy, please have a go at it. And please let me know so that I can read your version of eight random things about me and have a much needed laugh at your expense. ;-)

Done with that! Now for some (more) candid talk. When I started with this blog, it was an end in itself. But in thinking about it over the past few days, it has crossed my mind that this blog has gradually become incidental, the means to an end as of yet vague in description. It's purpose has changed to exploring other people's blogs and lives and basking in the awareness of how different lives can be even for people living in the same city, not to speak of the chasm that separates people on different continents. And yet there is a great universality to what we all seek and seek to express. And my quiet awareness of this universality seems to be growing as I lurk on blogs by people I do not know (which is what I've been doing all this while that this blog has remained forlorn), taking away pieces of a shared existence without letting the blogger even know about it.

Also I'm about to finish college in a week or so and conclude an education which unfortunately has not taught me anything. I hope that I can laugh at the useless wretchedness of it all after a few years. But then I know I will be able to.

That's the way I feel. I knew that I would try getting a novel published sooner or later. But this is much more than I'd expected. My Book Pitch got four publishers interested at The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. And as expected, I'm over the moon.

I like the fact that I don't know where this may lead me. But I know that I've arrived and am here to stay. And I do not say this with arrogance, but with a calm solitude of the person who knows that he has found a calling worth cherishing for the rest of his life through thick or thin. In fact, I count the announcement being made at the David Sassoon Library as an apt omen for the commencement of my writing career.


I find my situation slightly strange, because most of the blogger-cum-writers I know usually have an agent who takes care of all the details that bother us writers, including finding a suitable publisher for the books. In fact, McKoala got an agent recently. And here I've four publishers interested, and I don't yet have an agent to take care of things. God bless me!

Here's a brief outline of the book pitch:

Set in the fictional world of Prince of Wales Medical College attached to Queen Elizabeth Memorial (QEM) Hospital, the novel revolves around the lives of its four central characters – Vinay Sengupta, Bhoomika Sen, Shyamsunder Chatterji, and Arnaz Eduljee.

Vinay is the son of a retired lieutenant colonel, who wants Vinay to join the army as a medical officer when he is done with his studies.

Bhoomika is the daughter of a rich beer baron and a classical singer. Her parents had separated when she was four years old and she has grown up with her mother.

With a banker for his father and a housewife for his mother, Shyamsunder is a bourgeois nerd whose only accomplishment to date is his admission to the prestigious medical school.

The only non-Bengali protagonist, Arnaz is the daughter of a small-time industrialist mother. From her, Arnaz has inherited the verve and vivacity which make her the cynosure of attention on all occasions.

Set amidst the turmoil of anti-reservation riots that flare up across the country, A Cure For The Doctor tells the story of these doctors grappling with the thrill of their newfound affections, the burden of their noble profession, and the apathy of an indifferent government.

Other successful book pitches may be found here.

This book is not the sort that I might normally write - it has more to do with plot and incident than with the literary novel of detached observations that I may be able to pull off easily. You could even classify it as chick-lit or lad-lit due to certain lightheartedness of the romantic plot. For me though, the attempt will largely be styloclastic, if the word exists. It will be a sharp deviation from the sort of literature I appreciate and that I might write in the future. It will be in fact like an illegitimate child with a history more colorful and intriguing than legitimacy can provide.

I wish to thank Peter Griffin, Jason Evans, Sarah Hina, and Amogh Bhole for helping make this possible for me in some way or the other.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed and waiting to see how things shape up. Meanwhile living the dream while it lasts...