Every book contains in it something of the writer, as well as its readers. That’s what makes people want to read it. Somewhere they like seeing something of themselves in print, and often they see what they haven’t disclosed to anyone else. It’s reassuring to see facts cloaked as fiction, and know secretly that the writer knows your story.
Cloud 9 Minus One, my first novel, has turned into a book whose stories are universal ones. Everyone who has read this book or listened to parts of it during the reading sessions that I’ve been conducting, has declared that this book is all about them. Before people had heard it, they used to ask me if this book was autobiographical. After listening to it, they stopped asking that question. Because they already had the answer. This book was biographical, only the lives were their own.
This novel isn’t so much a novel as it is an account, an account of the gains and losses that we accumulate through our lives without even realising that that’s what we are doing. And even when we are winning, our losses keep mounting somewhere. And what the people in this book have taught me is that I can come out tops only when I keep track of the losses without letting them weigh me down.
Not many of you out there know the people in this book, so I’ll use this page to tell you a little bit about them.
“I’ll get a child, and then find a husband.” That’s how Priya has managed her life so far, by going out to get what she wants, until she finds that there’s one thing she just can’t get.
“Grow up!” That’s what Ruts feels like telling the people around her, her old classmates who insist on raking up dead issues from twenty years ago.
Jaggu is one of these, and he definitely is in the market for raking up old issues.
Then there’s Rats, the climber and achiever, until one fine day, the most important person in his life kicks out the ladder from below him.
And finally, Shridhar, who finds that life holds nothing but despair for him. He has never been on cloud nine. Till now.
These are the people who find that coming together after twenty years can bring surprises that that they couldn’t have anticipated in their wildest dreams.