It has been my personal desire for a long time that I write a book that is not actually fiction, while at the same time is not exactly factual either. While it is easier to write a book that deals with fictitious events, it is much harder to convert a part of one's own life into a book. Of course, I cannot write the entire story of my life ... for it would just be too boring to do that for me and also for the reader to digest. It appeals much more to me to just pick up some instances of my life events and twist some of the facts around so that while the actual facts remain hidden, I am able to share on a lighter note the major events that have occurred and I am sure will continue to occur for the rest of my life also.
At this point of time, I would like to dedicate the need to write this book to my wife and my daughter, who continue to encourage me to sit and write a book, for had they not had faith in my capabilities, I would never have gotten down to this task in the first place. My daughter, who is a third year under-graduate student in the faculty of English Literature in one of the more renowned colleges of Ahmedabad, is also one of my closest friends and worst critic, which is natural for her, and this is indeed something that I have learnt to appreciate. Though young and energetic, she is also very dynamic and can be very very intelligent, it is a pity she herself does not realize it and tends to be a bit of a lazy person at heart.
Coming back to the main topic, I have begun the first chapter of this book in a thousand ways over the last two years of my life and each time I have been unsatisfied with the result and have torn up the initial effort and thrown it away in anger and frustration. But after reading the latest books written by Ashok Banker and Amish Trivedi, I have been greatly inspired by excellent books written by them to start this effort afresh. Another reasonably good author, Chetan Bhagat, had mentioned in one of this books that one of the greatest inventions by mankind was the discovery of an application like Microsoft Word, for it is a boon for budding writers. I only extended that by trying to use the online portal of blogger.com as the place where I prefer to create my online book.
For one thing, anybody can access this site from any device, whether hand-held, mobile or a computer, and besides, I can type my mote from any device too! Sitting on a plane, travelling in a car, etc. etc. Be that as it may, I must say that the preface was entirely typed by me online, with not a single line being premeditated, words just flowing from the tips of my fingers directly from the brain.
Last but not the least, I would dedicate this book to my mother, who has always believed in my literary capabilities and has been telling me since I turned a teenager that at some point of my life, I should put down my thoughts on a piece of paper. Are my thoughts beautiful? No, of course not, but I believe that my thoughts have always been pure and transparent like water. I am a great disbeliever in the system of politics - be it the politics being indulged in by the colleagues in the office or the politics that go into the running of a country - too much corruption and too much duplicity for any sane man to deal with on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I am as much a part of this world as is the reader of this blog and everyone else too, so even I have to put up with a lot of things that I could do without, so what the heck!!
In a few days, I shall be putting up the first chapter of this online book, I cannot seriously say how many days that is going to be, but it will be pretty soon, for though I am not in a hurry to write this book, still I do not intend to take the rest of my life to finish it.
So keep reading on .......
