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The Journey
The Journey
People’s Kafe – my personal style of story telling, was born much before my first book was published. Writing for self-expression was a big part of my formative years. Add to that the formal study of literature in school, the sheer privilege and joy of reading Shakespeare, Ruskin Bond, Robert Frost, Wordsworth and many more laurates, under tutelage of some very fine English teachers sparked my creative expression. I started my writing journey as the editor and contributor for my school chronicle back in high school. I still remember the days of bunking games period, with licensed permission ofcourse, to park myself in the library and immerse in editorial work.
Once in college, the passion for English literary activities sailed me through a not so exciting engineering curriculum. The early 2000s saw advent of blogging in India and I gave in to the charm of writing for an audience. My first blog was a popular media website and won me some friends alongside an audience for my stories, poems and travelogues. Back then, admiration wasn’t expressed via ‘likes’, but in a more intimate way of comments. I am still trying to retrieve the lost remnants of that blog though, my first digital footprint in the world of writing. Some of my stories that you will find in my books are early works from this phase of my writing journey.
A hiatus from writing followed once I stepped into my first job in corporate. Not because I lost my love for writing. Perhaps I lost my voice of expression.
In more recent years, I attempted to give wings to my secret dream of being an author that I harbored from my blogging days. The tribulations I was going through, meant that I had to channel the angst through creative expression. And this is when I rediscovered my voice. My purpose. To be able to bring out the devil’s advocate side of all inequities I perceived around me. This voice of disruption found its recourse through my first book, “People’s Kafe – Stories of Human Emotion, Endeavors & Inclusion”. So you will find me narrating stories from my workplace, society, neighborhood about people and the hopes they carried in their hearts. The book went onto receive a lot of love from my audience.
That love, which you – my audience, showered was an inspiration to then create light hearted stories that would tug at the heartstrings, when the world needed a doze of positivity and hope in midst of a raging pandemic. So in covid lockdown was born my second book, a book of simple life musings, “People’s Kafe – A little Slice of life”, my take on beauty of nature, friendships and family, amidst the conundrum of covid.
Another self-discovery of sorts in pandemic was my long dormant love for artistic expression. That led to me take up art as an alternative form of expression. My art, now that I reflect, depicted my state of yearnings and desire to channel my fantasy of colours, textures, travel, emotions and romance. So came the idea of my third book, “People’s Kafe – A little book of Epiphany”, which is an art based guided journal that will take you, my readers, into a zone of self-expression and memories into a state of what I call as positive emotionality. It’s a heady cocktail of art and writing.
My fourth book, “People’s Kafe – The Secrets Granny Whispered in My Ears” is a tribute to the good times I had with her. In most of these anecdotes, you will also find a hidden gem of life lesson that Nani imprinted on my impressionable mind through her living. You will find a sneak peek into her quirks, superpowers, the family members and pets she nurtured, and in doing so, her quintessential zest for life. Nani’s stories are now the talk of the family, and ones I must bequeath to the next generation as folklores of our ancestors.
Watch out this space for release of subsequent books, “People’s Kafe – In Eternal search of Bluebells”.