The book...Flames Of Paradise...another milestone in my life..a journey that started its first hesitant steps in 1997... When a mega metamorphosis was taking place in my life...and the idea to write a novel germinated...it flowered and took shape in a few months...as I sat on the open verandah of my elder sister's sprawling bungalow in the foggy winters...as I walked on the damp serpentine roads with her, procrastinating about my future course of life...each character formed in my mind...to be reproduced on paper...my fingers getting tired by holding the pen...yet the words flowing out of mind onto the crackling loose sheets...sometimes watching the fine drizzle dampening the layered garden, sometimes breathing in the crisp cool air...sometimes the pen stopping it's journey when a soft, cottony cloud came kissing the doorsteps...that was the usual wintry day in Pachmari where I started writing my novel Flames Of Paradise....
It took me 6 months to finish my first draft...but the papers were pushed inside the suitcase that was getting packed for my onward journey of life...from Pachmari to New Delhi...
An unknown city...an unknown job...and a whole lot of unknown experiences...the next 17 years was a roller coaster ride of new opportunities, new friends, new assignments, new lessons, and a new road. A road to live free as I wanted...if not wished....and once again the crackling pages, now yellowed with time, lay there at the back of my rented flat's cupboard...a number of times my hands reached for the pages....a number of times I read and re read the story of Snigdha...and a number of times, with a sigh I pushed it back...
To take it out once again in 2012... When another new chapter opened...when another journey was taken....when another milestone was touched. During the post production of my first feature film, Music Meri Jaan...in one of my Mumbai to Delhi trips...I grabbed the crackling sheets of my novel...and started my second draft. And third...and the final.
Thus was born a redrafted story of Snigdha...in Flames Of Paradise...a love story of a woman who had seen it all..and was ready to write her future...
It took me 6 months to finish my first draft...but the papers were pushed inside the suitcase that was getting packed for my onward journey of life...from Pachmari to New Delhi...
An unknown city...an unknown job...and a whole lot of unknown experiences...the next 17 years was a roller coaster ride of new opportunities, new friends, new assignments, new lessons, and a new road. A road to live free as I wanted...if not wished....and once again the crackling pages, now yellowed with time, lay there at the back of my rented flat's cupboard...a number of times my hands reached for the pages....a number of times I read and re read the story of Snigdha...and a number of times, with a sigh I pushed it back...
To take it out once again in 2012... When another new chapter opened...when another journey was taken....when another milestone was touched. During the post production of my first feature film, Music Meri Jaan...in one of my Mumbai to Delhi trips...I grabbed the crackling sheets of my novel...and started my second draft. And third...and the final.
Thus was born a redrafted story of Snigdha...in Flames Of Paradise...a love story of a woman who had seen it all..and was ready to write her future...
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