Thursday, August 31, 2017

Behind the pages of ‘ Simply Being Sidds!’



I am a small time writer.  I used to write in the simple English I know and about what all impacts my life.  In fact, I had no specific writing goals.  It all started from writing essays in the school for competitions and articles for the school magazines and later on for Women’s era and scribbling what I thought is Poetry.   I had no particular style or direction.  I went on with the wind.  I wrote in classrooms, in trains, in mid of the nights,  early in the morning,  scribbled several poems in my diaries over the years, in the notepads and sticky notes and sometimes even on tissue papers that I could grab.    

Never in my life, I have thought I would write a book for someone, that too as special as Siddharth.   For one, I am not a great writer.  Secondly, my writing only gave meaning to me and to no one else.   Even my blog is in my name, my own self, my own brand with its limited followers who accepted me as a writer..for something or the other, they admire what I share and follow.

Though it was always my urge to help Siddharth in what ever way I can, I never thought I would be part of such a huge responsibility of taking ownership of writing his memoir with him.  When he entrusted that work to me, I was not sure if I could really handle it.  There was a plain canvas in front of me.   Forget about the final picture, even to sketch the draft of it was not easy.   I thought about it deeply.   Though I accepted his invitation to co-author immediately,  it took me a while,  really to be ready for the same.   I discussed on this with my daughter in detail.   I weighed its pros and cons.  I had no expectations.  It is just an opportunity to give back something to a friend who meant a lot in life. 

This is not going to be the first piece of published work.  There were instances where my writings got in print.  I have co-authored with Chennai Bloggers on the book ‘After the floods’ in 2016.   I have several scribbling s of mine in the form of poems in Poem Hunter e-book and hundreds of articles in my blog and other forums.  But this is a different genre.   A totally different expectation and the result is unexpected. 
 
It took me a whole weekend to think within before I met Siddharth for the first time on a Saturday afternoon.   I had a draft in mind, and I came up with the portions of the book, that need to be.  Sidd was over ambitious to achieve the completion in 3 months.  He had a date in March 2017 and later 5 Jun 2017 for the book release.   I promised him 3 hours every week on a Saturday.  And thankfully, I was able to keep up to that promise for several weeks till we got it all completed.   

The journey was not easy.   We laughed together, we cried together,  we fought, we argued, we listened to each other, we met many people, we spoke to several associates and friends.  The meetings were enriching.   The knowledge and learning that came along was phenomenal.  I dived deep into Sidd’s life like no one else could do.  We had our own mischief's,  quite dinners and rough days.   Some days, we couldn’t even write a page.   Sometimes, we did that for hours together without getting tired.   I met and spoke to amazing people in this process.   It was quite a momentum involving so many people in the book.   Each one came forward with so much of happiness.   The kind of response we got was remarkable.  Fantastic experiences. 

Towards the end, after we zeroed on the publisher, getting our sponsor and then editing started.   That’s when my mom needed medical attention and I was pulled into multiple priorities.   Sidd took the job on his shoulders without bothering me much and went ahead with the reviews.  I felt helpless.   He kept motivating me telling that priorities need to be taken care.   

When finally the day, we got a call from Notion Press on 8 Aug 2017, that the book is ready and the first 30 copies are available for authors to review,  Sidd called me with excitement.  I took  a cab and went to the Notion Press and received the box with the 30 books.   I touched it like touching a just delivered baby.   Yes, after 10 months of labor, here is our baby.   How else can we feel about it.

I brought the books to Sidd’s home, we both unwrapped it and touched the books, gently and then started taking pictures with the book and Raghu kept smiling at both of us.   The feeling is incredible.  

As we went ahead marketing our book, and planning the book launches and reaching out to our readers and portals for selling the book, we forgot about the royalty sharing or what we would reap out of it.  The purpose was larger towards inclusion, towards equality, towards accessibility, acceptance, employ-ability.  The expenses were mounting but it didn’t hurt us.   

We wanted the book to reach how many people ever possible.   We wanted to let the dreams of Dr Abdul Kalam shine and we went ahead with marketing, press and print media, social media campaigns, book launches and frequent sharing of information on the book in social media.  

Even if it helps few Siddharths,  even if it inspires mothers like Komala aunty,  if it encourages friends like Umasree and Prasanna to Sidd and even if one normal mainstream school makes the campus accessible to differently abled after reading the book, our very goal and purpose is achieved.   Tears of pain and joy mix when I look back on this journey.   It gave me an extended family.   Sidd’s family accepted me as one among them.   What else you need…  

Raghu and Aish stood as rock solid support to me in this journey,  my otherwise inquisitive mom, encouraged me as I worked every weekend on this project.   It is not the success of the book in terms of numbers that I am looking forward, it is the kind of reach and reforms that this book can bring with thinking process changing in the minds of at least a few. 

Thank you!

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