It was 19th March 2020 morning, as I was preparing to go on work my wife confronted me with the news of closing down of Schools, Colleges, Movie Halls due to spike in Corona positive cases. U.P. followed the norm which Delhi made a week back. The dreaded virus was making serious inroads in our lives. Wiffy literally put her foot down & so the supposedly never-ending house arrest started in our lives as well, just like in many others.
Two months went by in speculating & adjusting to the new normal of COVID times. One fine Wednesday on 27th May, while sipping morning tea in my balcony, enjoying a bit of ME-TIME a thought came in my mind that ' Can there be a love story in such a difficult time of lockdown due to Corona?' There itself, I put forth the idea in my School Alumni Whatsapp Group & asked for the pointers. In no time I could shortlist two brilliant pointers & my journey of writing my Debut Novel started.
Now since the story had the real backdrop which was a current scenario, extensive research had to be put in to make it as authentic as possible that too datewise. Out came the PTI (PRESS TRUST OF INDIA) news website & tweets of the last six months, Articles & Blogs on different Social Media platforms by individuals directly or indirectly involved, Government website updates of last 6 months, Various news agencies updates worldwide. News clippings from DD News of the last 6 months also gave important inputs.
That taken care of, now came to the all-important work of setting up the story in the date & time frame cohesively with the dreaded reality happening in the real world. After all, it was my maiden attempt in what I was doing. Let me tell you writing a 1,500 words blog [which I was doing for a year now] to write a novel of more than 25,000 words is another thing altogether.
I liked two pointers & decided to write two stories running parallel to each other with the backdrop of Corona, Lockdown & migration of Labourers. I thought I took too much on myself in the very first outing as a writer but once the thought clicked in my mind, there was no looking back thereafter.
The laptop was out and fingers started clicking the alphabets on the keyboard. The journey of bringing the characters of Rohan, Chetna, Kavita, Archana,Satender & Hari to life was no less than a rollercoaster ride of emotions filled with joy, happiness, sadness, triumph, hope, positivity, sacrifice and whatnot. My characters are not Black or White but Grey, they don't hesitate to display their real feelings without the fear of getting judged & that's the way it should be. Both the stories ended with the sacrifice which is an essence of love between two individuals. After all, when you are in love all you want is the other person's happiness.
On the 1st of July, after 35 days, my debut novel was complete. With another 7-10 days of giving the finishing touches, the book was finally launched as an e-book on Amazon Kindle & subsequently on Google Play Books Platforms for you all, on 9th July 2020.
Please give all your love to my first creation. I am quite hopeful you all will like what I wrote. With this, I sign off...until next time.
HAPPY READING!!
