RESCUE - Behind The Scenes!!

"Out of the window pane", that was the name of the poem I was writing way back in the year 2010. I had only completed the first stanza when suddenly one morning I got a heartbreaking and traumatic news. The painful news was about my grandmother's demise, an agonizing news for my entire family. My family was in tears, I too was brimming with emotion and pain. I somehow controlled my tears. My parents decided to board a train to Kerala that day itself, and after so many struggles and attempts they were finally able to reserve a ticket for the night train. Unfortunately, I had exams coming up due to which my parents decided to leave me behind and I had to stay back. My entire family will be there except me, I was sad.
For your parents no matter how old you become you'll still be a kid for them, and hence, they advised me to stay with my uncle and aunt. I didn't raise any objections before them because I wanted them to stay calm in those upsetting conditions. They reached Kerala and I was here with my uncle, aunt and my cousin sister. I kept myself busy in my studies and didn't even knew that something different was waiting for me. My cousin sister was my best companion in those days. I used to play with her and offer help for her studies. It was acting as a tranquilizer. One evening when I was busy with my books, I struck an unexpected chord with my writing work. No, I wasn't planning to move ahead with my still to be completed poem but with something else. A story had been playing hide & seek in my mind from many days and that evening I finally decided to start penning it down. I opened a small sized notebook, took a sharpened pencil and started with the first word wheels.

The first word itself was an indication that it was going to be a long-hard struggle. The wheel kept on rolling since that day and it never stopped till 4 long years. I had to earn some time out of my studies so that I could dedicate it to my debut novel. When you do that kind of a balancing act between two different things, many moments occur where you break your link with either of them. Firstly, it affected my studies to some extent, my scores started to drop down depressing me and, my parents as well. The embarrassment of scoring bad followed me for two years. Secondly, the first reason kept me out of touch from my writing work. I always sat with my notebook opened, pencil in my hand but, mind was always completely blank. I wasn't able to write anything, hardly two or three lines that too after exercising my mind so much. Two years passed, schooling was over and I had only written 45 pages. Till this time I never revealed anything about my work, not even to my parents. Eventually I figured out my problem. I was surprised to know that the real problem was not time (though it was one of the problems) but the fact that I was getting short of ideas. For a creative person this problem is like a nightmare. As a solution to this, I started interacting with more and more people to study them and analyse their day-to-day life. It is important for a writer to notice the environment around him/her because it is the biggest resource from where you can collect lot of innovation. Of course, you must have a mind of a child and an eye of a writer to do it successfully. During this process I finally met my friend Anshul who I found out to be equally creative like me. At last I found a companion with whom I could discuss every bit of my work with complete trust. We used to discuss a lot, the different angles of the plot, loopholes in the story, overrated & underrated descriptions etc. It was really fun to discuss all those things sitting on the terrace especially in the evening time. The momentum I was hunting for was finally in my basket.

Another 2 years passed and from 45 pages my book reached to 144 pages. I was happy, satisfied and relieved. The past two years changed a lot in my life. My education went a level up, it entered a different but yet creative field – Engineering. I found out that creativity had ‘n’ number of dimensions and I had touched just two of them. It would be a great challenge to touch each one of them. After coming midway in engineering and completing my book it was time to tell the world about it. After completing the first phase of editing I decided to break the suspense and waited for the right time. It was the month of October, more precisely 2^nd October 2012, when I finally posted an update on facebook with a self-created book cover  which looked somewhat like this. 

2nd October 2012

It created quite lot a buzz especially among my friends. During the initial days my inbox was full of messages asking me to mail my work to them. I gave a hard copy of my work to my parents which they received very happily and with lot of pride. On Christmas I posted another self-created book cover to make things more interesting. The people featuring in the cover are none other than me and my friends. The picture was clicked with a back view and then subjected to cropping and background change in an editing tool.

Christmas 2012

My friends, family and, all relatives started recognizing me as a writer but, for me it was only half journey completed. The book had to be published and for that I started looking for a publisher.

One and a half year had passed, my engineering was on the verge of completion and still I had no clue of any publishing house. I was constantly in a search, approaching every possible publication online and sometimes offline. Few of them never responded, few of them demanded too much and, rest of them rejected. Apart from these frustrating failures many good things also took place. Me and my friends made a movie making team titled Snowfill Entertainment and made a movie Wings by my side Click here to watch the movie. The movie was made with the help of average form of mediums we had that time and it gathered very good reviews and views as well. I wrote a short fiction entitled A Sparrow for You and a short story entitled A Cup of Tea. The latter was sent to a story writing competition conducted by L&T short story contest which of course I lost. I continued with my work of poetry to deal with my hard times and one of them entitled She Wished for a Waterfall was sent to All India Poetry Competition 2014 which again I lost. Towards the end of engineering I also got placed in a reputed software company and also became a content writer as well. All this was my part of conquering all those 'n' dimensions of creativity. But, all these achievements were not giving me that satisfaction which I was looking for. The year 2015 was very lucky as my book was finally accepted by a publication house – Notionpress.com, success after a number of failures. One man really helped me during that tough phase and he was none other than Mr. Prateek Jain, author of famous books like logical reasoning, elementary mathematics, eleven rhythms of life and, dream in the secret. Without his motivation this dream would still have been a dream. 

It was 1st March 2015 when my book finally came out in the market and with pride I could shout and say that yes, I am an Author. The 144 page manuscript after certain edits got converted into a 137 page manuscript. When it came out in the standard 5"x 8" book, it was of 273 pages. With an eye catchy book cover, simple and decent book trailer and, social media promotions my dream was finally reality. It was a priceless moment. For today the book is being purchased, read and is gathering mixed reviews and opinions. For some readers it is a worth reading matter while for others it is a good first attempt with a scope of improvement. For some it is not that good and I as an author need to work more hard to create an impression. All these reviews are just improving me as a writer and is definitely helping me to bring out unique stories and overcome my limitations.

For more details on Rescue - Paradise to Inferno click here

To watch the book trailer click here

To get updated about the book & author follow here

I would like to end this boring write-up with a line taken from my own book - When you put a bucket of hope into the well of dreams and pull it upwards with a rope of hard work...you achieve destiny. Rescue - Paradise to Inferno (Page 257)

For those who loved my work, I promise to deliver more good stories and hope you all will continue reading my work. For those who all whom I failed to impress, you all highlighted the shortcomings in me and I would love to work hard to improve it. HAPPY READING :)