Friday, 28 June 2019

EXCHANGING WORDS WITH ANANDAJIT GOSWAMI

NEWS OF BOOKS 19:52

AUTHOR'S BIO:

Anandajit Goswami is a writer and an economist by training with his post graduation in International Trade and Development from Jawaharlal Nehru University and PhD in Energy Economics and Policy from TERI School of Advanced Studies.  He has authored the first children  science fiction book on sustainability in India titled - "Lucy and The Train: Tryst with Sustainability" and coauthored a sequel titled - "Lucy Meets Artificial Intelligence". Both books have been getting rave reviews in Amazon and Goodreads and have been critically acclaimed by Indian Book Review Journal as a novel work in the space of Children Science Fiction literature in India and across the world. He has coauthored, coedited books titled - "Sustainability Science for Social, Economic and Environmental Development", "Economic Modelling, Analysis and Policy for Sustainability" released by Idea Global International, Pennsylvania. Other than this, he has contributed popular articles in newspapers and blogs for Economist, Reuters Foundation.  He writes regularly for his blogspace - geekonomistdiary.blogspot.com.  He has been a musician from the age of six and has initiated a movement called " Music and Sustainability", "Art from the Heart". His music tracks like - "Shukno Thote" , "Ajnabee"  are widely liked in Youtube and some other popular tracks on sustainability are available at Soundcloud.  In his earlier professional assignment with United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, he had established South South Collaboration programmes between India and Africa with the support of Ministry of External Affairs.

1. Who and what inspired you to write?
There is no particular individual or any particular event or discourse that inspired me as such. I read every novel, fiction, poetry, paper, magazine or for that matter any manuscript (be it a paper, book, fiction,  opinion piece, article, etc ) and try to imagine about the author’s, creators mind and his/her world in which the creator is traversing. These creations also include any form of visual art, motion picture or music and dance and theatre. While doing that for quite sometime I have been rediscovering several things towards the end of it. Once I finish the reading (all the forms which I mentioned above) there is a lot which I am not able to say and not able to communicate. So there is always a gap between what I have imagined and what I have been saying or what I have said or what I want to say in future. This gap in me like an empty earthern pot can only be met when I say something and I can assure you that no writer writes anything neither do I at the end of this exercise. In a similar way,  a gap in that earthen pot of mine was created on the discourse of gender, sexuality and gender neutrality issues across the world. I had to try to fill that gap within my own earthen pot. This book is a kind of a pebble which I got when I gave a dip in that empty earthen pot of mine.

2. What challenges did you face while writing and getting published?

It has been difficult and not difficult too. I faced many rejections, humiliations (all taken in a positive way- which is the crux of everything) as well as I found lot of support too in the journey and I am happy with both as they will always coexist no matter how much the situation changes. I dont think I actually wrote anything to get published. I always allowed my heart to allow towards finding out a gap in my empty earthen pot and once it was done, I started to think of publication which was a journey of self doubt to anxiety to finally a meaningful communication which is always imperfect. I have always believed that I will tell my story in my own way and there will always be people who will like, love, hate, criticise my work and me. I don’t need to worry about that at all. It is just that in my communication the heart should not allow any pretence in a single word and line of the creation (or for that matter in any form of creation) and should not think of market. Sometimes it works out and in certain cases it doesnot work out. But my process of creation and writing in anything I do is very simple. It is always to talk to an empty earthen pot and mirror inside me. However, in today’s publishing world along with writing, marketing is also very important: however, I also think in today’s world there is no one absolute marketing strategy – Therefore one has to constantly experiment with all forms of creative, marketing expressions and channels whichever the creative instincts suggest and I will always follow that.

3. How did you come to know about the literary agency THE BOOK BAKERS?  

An owner of an author’s club in Jaipur who promoted my two science fiction books - “Lucy and The Train: Tryst with Sustainability” and “Lucy Meets Artificial Intelligence” told me about THE BOOK BAKERS and introduced me to THE BOOK BAKERS.

4. How did THE BOOK BAKERS help you and what would you  like to say about them ?

   I owe a lot to Shri Suhail Bhai and THE BOOK BAKERS who liked the entire experimentation that I have done with story telling in this upcoming book. THE BOOK BAKERS is doing a wonderful work in selecting new, innovative manuscripts across a wide range of topics and really opening up the creative space of publication in this country. 

5.How do you see literary success for yourself?

I will be  happy if people like my work but frankly speaking I never think or worry about any literary success as it disturbs by creative process and framing, visualisation where I don’t compromise. The success will definitely take me to a new station which started from self-doubt to anxiety to a flower blooming to the final expansion of the fragnance of the flower. But my creative process is never dependent on any success. I write and create just like a neuro-biological, psychological need of my mind to survive as we eat food to survive. So I am not focussed at all on the success element as long as I am honestly able to create something for atleast few who can smile, laugh, cry, shout and be like a human being in the process. And if many in the process does it, it is like a windfall for me which I never expected.

6. When can we expect your next book?

I am already co-authoring the third book in the series of Lucy (after “Lucy and The Train: Tryst with Sustainability” and “Lucy Meets Artificial Intelligence”) since more than last one year. The third book I am co-authoring with Dr. Debashis Chakraborty with whom I co-authored “Lucy Meets Artificial Intelligence”. And there is another manuscript in which I am working. Right now I am creating an outline and visualisation of this manuscript. However, for Lucy 3, the first very preliminary draft of all chapters are done. I will now polish it further with the guidance and mentorship of my co-author Dr. Debashis Chakraborty. Lucy 3 is a science fiction with a lot of concussion and questioning of the overlapping areas of speculative science fiction, cli - fi, drama, mystery, international politics and a magical, fantasy world trapped in the cognitive dissonance of a utopic and dystopic future of the universe itself. 

7.Any message or tips for aspiring authors?

I am not a writer or author to give tips or message. But if you want to have a catharsis - write, search the earthen pot of your mind, express your heart in every line and communication and spread colours in them no matter what they are or whoever likes them. Be fearless to express yourself.

BOOK NAME : PINK GENDER :THE STORY OF A MAN,A WOMAN AND A DREAM
PUBLISHER : BIG FOOT PUBLICATIONS

BOOK SYNOPSIS/BLURB :

One day a man, a woman and a transgender gets a call for police Investigation at the police station regarding an unintended, serendipious accident. Police investigates the matter and calls the three people at the police station. The three - a man, a woman and a transgender waits in the counselling centre without even knowing how their lives are interconnected with an event of watching the film "PINK " in the same theatre on the same day in the same show.
Their stories and mysteries unfold  in the counselling room of the police station and a connecting link between their stories is established.  The mystery is associated with the film they watched and the time during which they watched it.
What finally happens ?; - "The three gets trapped more or move on  with their lives or do they collude to come out of this and create a new move against the  police to come out and chart out their own journey by being friends" . This story is all about these magical mysteries of life which are unexplained in their own ways and how they get more revealed when three lives with different sexual and gender orientations criss cross each other in a police investigation in the police counselling room.

Sunday, 23 June 2019

EXCHANGING WORDS WITH PRADEEP GOVIND

NEWS OF BOOKS 18:50

AUTHOR’S BIO:

Pradeep Govind is an NRI media marketing professional currently working in the Sultanate of Oman. He was the Project Director of the prestigious Times of Oman Literary Contest, a first of its kind literary project in the Middle East initiated and blueprinted by him with a view to offer emerging creative writers a platform to express themselves and benchmark their creative writing talent with the best in the region. His first book titled The ‘Capillary’ Effect & Other Short Stories was published on Amazon in 2013. One of the stories in the book titled ‘Unto Thy Neighbour’ was awarded an Honourable Mention for Literary Excellence in the Top 25 out of 1114 entries in the International Short Story Contest conducted by noted writer Lorian Hemmingway, the granddaughter of the legendary Ernest Hemmingway. Pradeep is also an enthusiastic lyricist and musician and has released his own English music album on the HMV label in 1995 where he not only penned the lyrics, but composed the songs and performed the vocals as well. He also scripted the music video for one of the songs in it titled ‘It Could’ve Been Me’. He also does guest columns and articles for the Times of Oman - Oman’s leading English newspaper publication.  

1. Who and what inspired you to write?

I had a flair for expressing myself effectively in words from a very young age. But I never realized that it had the potential to help me beyond essay writing in school and so I never took it up seriously. Of course I used to dabble with song writing and marketing taglines occasionally.  One day, I was coming out of a temple when I saw a beggar outside. He seemed to be reasonably healthy and I wondered why he couldn’t work instead of begging outside temples. Then in a flash, a thought struck me that what he did outside the temple was exactly what I did inside the temple – “beg”. The only difference was that I was begging to the Gods I saw in those stones while he begged to the God he saw in me. That’s when I realized for the first time the folly in being judgemental. This inspired me to write my first short story titled “The Better Beggar”. Once I started to write, somehow the ideas kept coming and I ended up writing a book of short stories titled “The Capillary Effect & Other Short Stories” which I subsequently got published on Amazon kindle. The central theme of all the stories in the book was to not rush into conclusions, overlooking the fact that there could always be a truth hidden beyond the curtains of your mind. That was pretty much the same thinking that inspired my second book “I, Duryodhana...” that’s now out in the market. It is a narration of the incidents of Mahabharata narrated from Duryodhana’s angle.

2. What challenges did you face while writing and getting published?

Every author will tell you that at some time or the other, he’s encountered the writer’s block. This happened to me as well. The first three chapters of my new book I, Duryodhana...were  written in 2003. And then I encountered a huge block. I just didn’t know how to proceed for the next 14 years although the thoughts and ideas were percolating in my mind. I used this time to do more research on the subject. And finally when I resumed writing in 2016, the next 57 chapters were written in just 40 days. As for the getting it published, I had learnt from my experience with my first book that it’s not easy to grab a publisher’s interest unless you are either someone well known or well connected...especially when you are living outside the country. 

 3. How did you come to know about the literary agency THE BOOK BAKERS ?

 Luckily for me, a good friend of mine M.S. Neelakantan referred me to Suhail and The Book Bakers as a literary agency.

4.How did THE BOOK BAKERS help you and what would you like to say about them ?

I have a great working relationship with Suhail, although I've never met him personally. He had a lot of faith in my book and assured me that he was confident of getting me a good publishing deal. He kept his word and as a matter of fact was able to get offers from multiple publishers. I told him that  I would completely leave the choice of the publisher to his discreation as I'm clueless about the industry. We finally signed up with Om Books International. Over the last couple of years, I think The Book Bakers have been doing a fantastic job in unearthing creative writing talent in India. The agency is a fantastic initiative and I wish it continues in this great work and make a significant contribution to the literary world in India. 

5. How do you see literary success for yourself?

I don’t see myself as a professional writer. I am more of an inspired writer and for me to bring out something, I need a thought, an idea or an incident to trigger me. As a writer, if I am able to express myself and convey my thoughts through my words effectively and make an impact on the reader, that is literary success to me. This would not have been my answer a few years back. But over the years, I’ve realized that success is all about doing what you like and feeling good about it.

6. When can we expect your next book?

Its a creative thing...and like I said, I am an inspired writer and one never knows when inspiration could strike. Could be tomorrow, next year or perhaps never.

7. Any message or tips for aspiring authors?
In all modesty, I haven’t become that big enough to offer advise. However, I could share a few things that worked for me:Keeping an open, empathetic and receptive mind.
Observation skills. Always asking “Why?” and “Why not?”
Clarity in knowing what you want to convey through your writing.
A pinch of sense of humour.

BOOK NAME:  I, DURYODHANA...
PUBLISHER : OM BOOKS INTERNATIONAL

BOOK SYNOPSIS/BLURB:

Awaiting emancipation through the embrace of death, Duryodhana, the fallen Kaurava prince reminisces about the past as he narrates his version of the incidents that unfolded in his life, starting from his birth as a lump of flesh. Truth is fragile and often vulnerable to distortion as history tends to favour the victors. This saga of pride, loyalty and heroism interlaced with deceit, hypocrisy, and betrayal, leaves the reader with that one vital question, ‘who is to blame?’.  

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