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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