My love for stories dates back to as long back as I can remember. Growing up in a small village in Chapra district of Bihar, I could either spend my time gallivanting around the lush fields and landscapes like other village kids or I could develop a hobby as mundane as reading. Something within me made me opt for the later, and I can only be too glad for that. Well, I transitioned into an author eventually, didn’t I? And none of those other kids who opted for wandering about the village have become celebrated explorers or something as far as my information goes.
Well, growing up in rural India had its own perils back then. At the tender age of five the desire to bless me with quality education had my parents check me into a hostel in Kurseong, Darjeeling. Life had suddenly taken a drastic turn. Some of the emotions and experiences from back then are enough to leave even the sturdiest of hearts beady eyed, but I shall spare you that agony for now (in case I have aroused enough curiosity within you, may I recommend my book, ‘Reality Bites’ for further indulgence).
All along I would yearn for the long summer breaks when I could be home cuddled up with my books. Mostly it were Hindi comics and novellas that I would manage to lay my hands on, but they worked just fine. I would use all the sympathy I could garner by virtue of staying alone (in a hostel) at such an early age to cajole my extended family members into gifting me comics and books. And before I realized I had set up a small and reasonably successful book-collection enterprise. In fact legend goes that when my youngest uncle was getting married I had sought dowry in the form of a bag-full of comic books, and apparently my wish had been duly granted as well. Not an act that I am particularly proud of, but perhaps an early indicator of things to come.
So while I was gleefully swimming in the world of stories, my parents, like most middle class Indians desirous of raising the next Einstein, were obviously concerned. “Pay equal attention to your course books and you will reach somewhere in life,” my mother would furiously snort, snatching the comic I had apparently been glued to for an impossibly long time and depositing a stamp of her palm on my cheek in a single wave of her hand. Unfortunate that this wasn’t an Olympic sport back then (or ever), else I have little doubt that my mother would have brought much laurels to the country.
Anyways, I persisted, drawing a delicate balance between my love for stories and my mother’s wrath. Time ebbed along and from Kurseong I moved to Delhi (Delhi Public School, Mathura Road – Hostel), my preferred reads gradually altering, perhaps with the sudden availability of more options. I was now reading Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie and even classics like The Little Prince and 1984. I can’t claim to have precisely understood everything that I read, but that never proved a deterrent. Books and I were in for a long haul and a few difficult words or cryptic sentences were hardly going to do us apart.
By now I had learnt to hold my own in the direst of circumstances – hostel life had taught me that. I could understand people and link their actions with their motives to a fairly precise level. I could read the dynamics within groups and I could feel the undercurrents within relationships. And this, to me, was the one most important takeaway from many years of hostel life. In my stories I try and leverage this strength to the best that I can and several readers have written back appreciating the interplay of emotions and human relationships that form a pivot for many of my stories.
My first book, Pillars of Success, a work of self-help, was released in 2004. Since then I have been striving to provide something new to my readers with each of my books. How I got down to penning my first book is a different story altogether, and I shall leave that to another place and another time!
anurag anand 