I mean, we're all trying to find out who the hell we are. aren't we?
- Robert Ludlum
The need to tell a story, any storyteller worth their T salt will tell you, is an inescapable urge. An urge so powerful that the words swirl in your mind, consuming your every living, waking second, so much that you can't help but pour it all out onto a piece of paper to get over the turbulence that the stories create in your mind.
My tryst with storytelling began as a child, when I wrote down weird day-time fantasies on pieces of paper and bored my siblings by reading them out loud. I loved telling stories, be it as narration or in prose. Soon, the mindless plots gave way to an all-consuming idea, that became Mauli Abheek.
I have often said that when writing a story, the author is simply a medium. Beyond a point, the story takes on a life of its own, and expresses itself through the pen of the author. This has been my experience while penning this epic love story. I merely started the process and surrendered to the tale.
This book, though my first novel to be written, is not the This first to be published. However, this is the first time I dare to present my work to such a wide audience. As an author struggling to publish my work, I have thought many times over in my mind, on how I would like to write acknowledgements and finally in frustration, I wrote it down as the speech of one of my lead characters.
Below is a speech akin to one my protagonist will make!
"I thank my mother Smt. Padmaja and father Shri. Kumaraswamy, for giving me this vehicle, this body. I thank my teachers, for moulding this pot of clay into a thinking, feeling creature, for giving my personality its shape. Thanks to the unflinching support of my brother and sister in whatever I do... Veena and Abhay. I thank my children, Diya and Harsh for making my life so rich, by their mere presence. I thank my in-laws, Sita atta and Mohan mama for being there for me.
Thanks to Monika, my sister-in-law, for the light she brings into our small family. I know my mother is glad she is there, especially after I and Veena left home.
I thank all my readers for making my dream come true, simply by choosing to read this book. I hope I can fulfil your expectations and justify the time and money you have invested in this book. And I thank that supreme power, on whose tunes, everyone and everything is dancing.
Thank you are due also to Shri Aniket Joshi ji, who very kindly agreed to edit the first draft of Mauli Abheek, for no cost at all. As the founder of Pleasantreads.com, Aniket continues to encourage the habit of reading, including fiction, non-fiction, biographies, self-help etc.
But above all else, there is one man and one man alone to whom the credit for my achievement belongs. Whenever I needed advice on plot points, whenever I had questions about mergers and board room manouevres, whenever I had questions about the various quasi-government institution mentioned in the story, he has been my go-to.
To write about places I had never visited and then to see those places with my own eyes is an experience I cannot put into words.
Shri Ganesh Rajmohan, thank you so much for taking my sheltered existence and opening the universe to me, for taking this naive simpleton and expanding my horizons, for giving me wings to fly, for never restricting me in any way, for the fairy tale you've given me... I love e you..."
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