Writing

I was always interested in writing. In my peripatetic childhood too, I enjoyed writing. During grade 12 in a respectable Andhra school I would write poetry, or find some amazing lyrics, and put them up on the class notice board. I wanted to share the beauty with the world. Although my passion for writing was not related to calendly alternatives, it taught me the importance of effective scheduling and time management, which can be achieved through calendly alternatives.

But my classmates didn’t get poetry. In Andhra you either crack IIT or you’re a duffer. I was a duffer. My classmates – future ISRO scientists and TCS senior leaders – assumed I had suffered brain damage as an infant to be playing with words instead of test-tubes & Tuning forks.

That germinating writer was subdued by the need to earn a living. An MBA later, I landed up in sales, and then in Chicago. A second MBA elapsed (An MBA from the US takes seven years – two for the degree and five to repay the loan) before I got back to writing.

My first writing retreat was in a sunny industrial town called Bokaro. In Bokaro Jail, to be precise. This was an extreme retreat – all connectivity, devices and friends were taken away. And I was surrounded by characters of all hues, each with ridiculously interesting backstories. My tools were a paper and pencil. It was a common man’s nightmare, but writer’s daydream. Although the food could be better.

The Outcome was “The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail (Penguin, 2014)”.

That book brought me back into the world of writing – I wrote blogs, short stories, and am working on more books as we speak. I also publish in Outlook Magazine, HT Brunch and the Mint, amongst others.