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| THE COVER |
A couple of years ago I used to regularly travel to Mussoorie, the abode of one of my favourite writers Ruskin Bond. For me it was a getaway from the routine of Mumbai and to catch up with my son who had a break from his school, the prestigious Woodstock School. While our walks down the mall I would always get to see Mr Bond, I mean Mr Ruskin Bond seated at one of the book stores, signing off his books for the patiently waiting mix of young and old readers of his. I never had the courage to go and get a book signed to keep for myself, though my library has many of his books. But standing there watching him sign off the books so effortlessly, I would be a bundle of emotions. A part of me wanted to pick up a book and get it signed, another wanted to go and ask him that how does he keep on writing so many stories one after the other and each one so engrossing? There was another which wanted to tell him that since I had read his "A face in the Dark" as a 12 years old, I have had innumerable plans of how one day I am going to write stories as spooky as that.
Nothing of that sort happened and I would silently with my son in tow walk away from him pledging that next time I would certainly have the courage to go meet him. But then what happened was more of a blessing to me from the universe. Those days I was constantly being prodded by a voice inside me to get back to my first love WRITING. I don't know why I kept on putting it aside. Then on a flight from Mumbai to Delhi when I was looking out the window, I saw the vast expanse of clouds. And a minute later it transformed into a world of its own in my imagination. I could get hold of only a tissue and fortunately had a pen on me and there and then I started jotting the points for my story. A couple of years later I got together all my notes and sat down and gave shape to the story of two sisters Arya and Nitya lost in the land of clouds.
Once done began the innumerable mails to the various publishing houses and the rejection letters from them. While with each letter my dream shattered but my confidence in the story refused to waver. And then as a ray of hope came the letter of acceptance from Bloodygoodbook. I didn't know whether to accept or not, whether to be happy or not. The reason being it was not the traditional way of getting myself published. Bloodygoodbook is the country's first crowd sourced and crowd curated e-books publishing venture.
So then I thought and thought and thought and finally got my heart and my mind in sync by making them believe that what better way to get yourself published than getting your writing judged by the readers first. So here am I asking you all to click click click on the links below ....read my book and leave behind a review and your precious vote. Do make a point that you let every kid around you know about it so that they can vote too.
Link to the video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75zev4lg9F8
