Anushka: Let us begin with most obvious question: the moment your journey with the Pen began. Did you always want to be a writer, or did it happen by chance?
I always loved to express things in writing but never took it as anything more.  I never gave any thought to creative writing as a vocation though I was reporter of my school magazine.  Even ‘The Mysterious Dreams’ was an unplanned project. So I would say I became a writer by chance.

Anushka: You have an MSc in microbiology, and had a successful career as a manager in the corporate world, or so I’ve read. How did writing happen? Was it a conscious decision?
Though I had a cushy and comfortable job in a multinational I started feeling that I was losing out on my creativity. Microbiology, a manager’s job in corporate world, and creative writing were three different fields. I was getting tired of the daily grind of a nine to six job six days a week. So, leaving my job was a conscious decision and though I already had my own blog and used to write short stories, I never thought I would take up writing seriously.

Anushka: The Mysterious Dreams is very different from what authors prefer to write about these days. How did the idea for it come to your mind?
Though the story has no resemblance to my life, I would say I wanted to write something about the hippies. This is because during my school days we were surrounded by them. I was brought up in a very conservative and traditional atmosphere in the very area where hippies had made their home. Many of them used to take injections from my parents who were government doctors looking after immigration of international passengers. These same hippies lived in the hotel pat opposite my building and used to grimace and complain about the pain. I found them very humane and easy-going people and as a child I could easily accept them without getting affected or influenced by their way of life. It was like two different kinds of lives were coexisting so closely. In Mumbai (Bombay) we were taught to absorb all kinds of things, develop a tolerance and let people live as they wanted. I learnt to watch life objectively and without judgement. I also realised that most youngsters today who ape the hippies’ fashion do not know/understand about the hippie counterculture that originated in US and why they did what they did.

Hippies were painted as some very bold and bad people. But these same youngsters are blindly following the fashion trends, music, food, drug habits, etc., pioneered by the hippies. The hippies gave up their own comforts to try to bring peace to the world in their own way. They advocated liberation and freedom of thinking which our children are demanding today. They broke conventions and even gave us people like Steve Jobs and that is what our children want to do today and that too for a better society and adults are slowly and gradually easing out of their authoritarian attitudes. However, the hippies had their faults and limitations and failed in their time. The Mysterious Dreams demonstrates this.

Most readers try to find the author in the story. However, I believe it is a challenge to create a story from one’s imagination and yet say what one has to. So I was sure I wanted to write something far removed from my own life. Other than the initial setting of the story, I bear no resemblance to any protagonist.

Having heard real experiences from people who have had recurring same dreams, The Mysterious Dreams leaves an open ending where the doubt about the lovers having had another life before lingers in one’s mind and also leaves one wondering if the scores will be settled in a future life. It could be just a dream or it could be some message from another world…..

Anushka: Someone once said, “Writing is easy. You just put paper in the typewriter and start bleeding.” Do you agree with the statement? How would you define it?
Writing is a passion. I think only people who have this passion can write just like a cricketer or a singer or an actor needs to be passionate for his/her work. Any creative work is basically a collection of skills and not a single skill. A writer needs to have a good flow of language, good ideas, creativity, command over language, great imagination, some amount of humor, a penchant for research, stamina, editing skills, keen observation of life and an aware and alert mind. One needs an appealing theme and a way with words. Many people ‘bleed’ words just to vomit out their frustrations and feelings and then tear up the paper. Writing is not such a thing. For writers, there is a certain goal they want to achieve for their own satisfaction as well for others. They want to reach out and give a message through their book in some way. Sometimes words do not come and authors suffer from writer’s block. Also, different people have different ways of writing. Some just start writing, some structure their work first and are systematic.

Anushka: A short story written by you, The Firangi Bride, was picked by the Chicken Soup for the Indian Bride and soul publication. Can you tell us about the story, and also about your experience when you got to know that your story had been picked? 
In my childhood I came across a few marriages where conservative Bengali guys had got married to Russian and Japanese girls. I had the opportunity to chat with one such girl who was my age and was impressed by her adaptability and very kind and open outlook towards old Indian traditions. This inspired me to write this story. This story was written for my blog even before I received the invitation for contributing to the Chicken soup for Indian bride soul book.

Anushka: How easy or difficult was it to get your first novel published? What sort of apprehensions did you face?
I would say that I did not find it very difficult to get my first novel published because when I sent the synopsis and sample chapters, I was immediately given a go–ahead by the publishers, given the theme.  I cannot say that will be the case all the time but considering I was a first-time author, I feel I did not have to struggle much.

Anushka: Do you usually outline your stories before you write them, or do you ‘go with the flow’?
I do have a general idea about how I would like the story to unfold but as I write and get fresh ideas, I keep improvising and may even change the course of the story.

Anushka: Is writing for you a personal pursuit or is it intended for a target audience?
Writing is a personal pursuit for me and I like to think that I am writing for all kinds of readers and not for a particular category.

Anushka: Name a book or a story you wish you’d written.
‘Gone With the Wind’ or closer home ‘The Far Pavilions’.

Anushka: What was the most interesting research you ever did for your book? 
The insights into the religious beliefs that were so different from what we knew the Hindu religion to be with all its oddities. I found a solid base to life and living and an explanation about life in those interesting stories about Shiva and Krishna who many people paint as addicts, flirts etc. I also loved the research on hippies and felt I was delving into their psyche.

Anushka: Among the Indian authors – fiction & non-fiction – who are your favorites?
Amitav Ghosh,  Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri and Sarat Chandra Chatterjee.

Anushka: How do you deal with your critics?
Constructive criticism helps me learn about my strengths and weaknesses. However, if somewhere down the line I feel that the critic is misunderstanding my work, I wish I could clarify, e.g., some critics remarked that my main protagonists exhibited unpredictable behaviour and found that irksome and unbelievable. I would say that the hippies did unpredictable and weird things and that’s why they were hippies and I have portrayed them in the way they really were.

But many young people or even people of my generation are not aware of hippies and their ways and so cannot believe my protagonists as they judge the person’s actions according to norms of their own society and forget that I am talking of a different group of people who have set up their own counterculture, having bored of traditional society, so one can’t expect hippies to be more rational and traditional. I have researched on them and my characterization of characters is based on that. Moreover Click hereI have also come across girls like Shibani who desire to do their own thing and so I would not say she was an unbelievable character. I have met women of my age who tell me that they were bohemian and headstrong and would not have agreed to an arranged marriage even in those days and would love to explore life on their own. It was only because of the public image they would create and the scorn they would have to face afterwards that they did not reveal their wishes at the time. Today things are opening up and people are speaking about their past. The critics only need to delve deeper into the soul of the book to understand it better.

Most critics liked my mastery of English, my way with words, and the fact that it was a different theme and not the run-of-the mill love story or college campus romance.

Check out the blurb:

When John Lennon said, “Imagine there is no Religion” . . . he did not suggest, “There is no God”. He meant God is one. Religion is just a brand.
Toddle along the extraordinary paths travelled by hippies who, by tuning in to their inner vision, etched their marks into the collective vision of mankind in the 20th century. After millennia of war and strife entailing suffering of countless millions, have we risen above our petty differences and embraced peace, love, and freedom? Or is our recurring past still lingering in our memories? What the mystery behind the recurring dreams and perpetual fear?The book’s finale is still hopeful of liberation. . .

Check out the author’s website Click here.
Buy the book Click here.