Even as a kid, I absolutely loved the ‘lived happily ever after’ syndrome as I grew up reading all the fairy tales I could lay my hands on, Phantom comics, Mandrake comics and the like. It was always about good triumphing over evil and a happy end.
Soon, into my teens, I switched my attention from fairy tales to Mills & Boon. While I loved reading both of these, I kept visualising what would have happened if there were similar situations happening in India; to a local hero and heroine. My imagination took flight and I always lived in a rosy cocoon of romance over the years.
Then came the writing – a true bolt out of the blue! I could never string two sentences together. While my spoken English had always been excellent – thanks to my Grandpa – I couldn’t write to save my life. I was bad at writing essays in both school and college. Later, when it was time to teach my kids, I could manage everything from Science to Mathematics and History & Geography. When it came to writing compositions, my kids found me of no help at all.
All this changed suddenly one fine day in the year 2000. I had just quit my job at a school’s office and didn’t know what to do with my life. I was saturated with simply reading books. That’s when I returned home one evening after my walk, took some sheets of paper and began writing. It was like watching a movie that was running in my head – all those years of visualising Indian heroes and heroines needed an outlet and had to be put into words. That’s how my first novel, The Malhotra Bride, took shape. While I felt discouraged when publishing didn’t happen, it was my husband who kept encouraging me not to give up.
There was no looking back after that. While publishing took a long time happening, I continued to write novels and then short stories and had them published in my blogs. Now it’s all about self-publishing my books on Amazon.
I have published The Malhotra Bride (2nd Edition); Meghna; The Runaway Bridegroom; Flaming Sun Collection 1: Happily Ever Afters From India (Box Set) and Matches Made In Heaven (a collection of romantic short stories) so far.
Message Wall