#tnks – Page 3

Next steps on #tnks

Its done! I have finished the first draft of The Nidhi Kapoor Story.

What? Did you ask what is The Nidhi Kapoor Story? Are you living under a rock or something?

I can talk about excitement, exhilaration, fear, butterflies in the stomach, emptiness and all that. But let me park those because for the time being, I want to focus on the tasks at hand first.

This proximity to the finish line means that I need to find answers to a few very important questions that would determine the fate of the book. And my future as a full-time writer.

Here is an indicative list of things that need done. Pronto.

Find an editor. Someone to painstakingly go through the first draft, find all the mistakes that I’ve made. Mistakes in terms of plot, grammar, sentence formation, structure etc.
Find a designer. To help me make marketing collaterals and design other miscellaneous things. Yes, I have asked everyone who has the word “design” in their bio. And everyone has refused so far. I don’t know why. I don’t know what am doing wrong here. Help!!
Find a publisher. Or an agent. Someone who know how this “industry” works. Someone who could help the book see the light of the day.
Create a marketing plan. I may claim to be an aware marketeer, but I need to put the plan on paper. And more importantly, execute it.

All this, under the constrains enforced by joblessness and limited “financial leverage”.

Not to mention that I am on a constant lookout for the next career opportunity, after all, the money that I had saved all this while, is about to run out. Help me? This is my LinkedIn profile.

God? Tooth fairy? Bhagwan? Jezus? Anyone? Please?

As a kid, every time I saw this “That’s all Folks!” signage and heard the accompanying cheery music that came along with it, I got really sad and depressed. Sad as in SAD. S A D. Depressed as in DEPRESSED. D E P R E S S E D.

Why? Because the amazing cartoon that I was watching (Looney Tunes more often than not) was coming to an end. And I did not want it to end. I would cry because it was coming to an end. Since I could not control what started and ended when on the TV, I would cry all the more at my helplessness.

Today, years later, yet another thing came to an end. Something that I did not want to end. Something that I could prevent from ending and yet I let it end. I’d come to it in a bit. Meanwhile, I want to talk about the new-found respect I have for the guys who thought of “That’s all Folks!”. For, today, I realized that the end means conclusion. An end. The “That’s all Folks!” marked the beginning of the end. So that other things may be started. In fact, everything we do eventually comes to an end. It has to. That’s how the world has been designed by Mother Nature. And rather than crying about it, cribbing about it, we need to embrace it. With open arms. When something ends, we need to go forth. And celebrate it. We need to start looking forward to next. Start preparing for the next. We need to go on. Must go on. To the next adventure. To open that next door that beacons at us. The next dark alley that has always lured us. The unknown.

Ok, ok. I’d stop. There is more that I can talk about end but I need to end the rant. To talk about the next. I don’t know what that next is. I mere have a vague idea. I’d come to it in a bit. But I know what I ended today. The first draft of #tnks.

Took me 6+ months, 3 missed deadlines, 80K+ words, 240+ pages, 2 laptops, innumerable coffees and countless rickshaw rides to nearest Starbucks to work on the first draft. And today I finally completed the first draft of the book.

It also required me to quit my job, eat out of my savings and rely on temporary jobs to pay my bills. All said and done, this journey was totally worth it. I now know at least one thing that I want to do in life.

Am I good at it? Will I be appreciated? Can I make a living out of it? Can I make a dent? Jury is still out but I am willing to put in effort and wait for it.

For the time being, the big news is that that I have managed to finish the first draft of the book. And now that I have completed the first draft of the book, what is next? Two things. A, get some friends that I trust to read / review the book. And B, start talking to publishers, agents, designers, editors and other such people.

Over the next few weeks, I shall do so. And like every-time, I shall keep you guys posted.

What to order at Starbucks?

The thing is that I love sitting at Starbucks and working on my book.

Even though I am alone when I am there, in my head, I am on a date with Nidhi Kapoor. Or may be with Renu on some days. There are days when I there with Tarana. Like today, I was with Renu and I had a wonderful time.

Coming back, irrespective, there is someone or the other to talk to when I am at Starbucks. I mean someone from my book. A character or two that I have cooked up. And when I am with someone, I love having conversations with them. In fact, conversations with these imaginary characters have helped me write.

Rather than thinking about the next line, I ask Nidhi about it. Or Tarana. Like today I asked Renu about her past and what made her the way she is. She had a lot to say. So much that I had to type fast. Really fast. So these answers from imaginary friends help me write. A friend told me that I am not an inherently creative individual. She may be right but then I think that this superpower that I have to converse with these imaginary characters help me craft what I am working on.

To be honest, the entire Nidhi Kapoor story is a result of these conversations.

The book is coming to an end. About three more days before I finish the first draft. I am hating that the book is coming to an end. I dont know how to keep it alive. Soon, I’d be the saddest and loneliest man that I know of. Why? Because all this while I had company of these three amazing women and in some days, I would be alone.

Guess such is life. But then, there is something that I am looking forward to. The next plot. I am hoping to write this one with a friend. We are still discussing it but if it goes as per plans, it would require me to sit at Starbucks even longer. But, but the challenge is, I do not like coffee. Or the iced-tea. Or anything that has any milk in it. Except ice-cream. I also don’t want to eat any snacky things that they offer at Starbucks; after all I am on a ~~weight~~ inch loss spree and I want to avoid anything that is fattening.

And I don’t want to sit at Starbucks and not buy anything. You see, reciprocity is a brilliant mental model and of all the people I know, I am the most severe case. If I am going to spend three hours everyday at Starbucks, I ought to buy something from them. No?

What do I do? What do I order? Someone help!

Originally posted here.

Reading vs Hearing

Posted originally on The Nidhi Kapoor Story blog.

Yesterday I was dinnering with a friend and talking about The Nidhi Kapoor Story. While we were at it, he told me something very insightful about the way I write. He said, “my sentence structure is very conversational.“

I did not understand this at first. When I prodded him more, he said that he meant that when he reads things that I write, he does not have to make any special efforts to comprehend what he is reading (aka what I’ve written). Its like someone talking to him. Its like a regular, everyday conversation that two people are engaged in. There is back and forth of ideas, thoughts. The words, the sentences, the meaning is plain jane and is commonplace. He said he could consume it while sleeping and yet comprehend it.

So, next, I asked him, “What is the other kind?”

He said, the one where you use flowery language and you write with the intent of using words to exaggerate the meaning, club them with other interesting words to create poetry. Poetry not as poems but poetry as expression. Where, while reading, you need to focus on what is written. Where, when you do comprehend what is written, you are filled with pleasure. Pleased at the ingenuity of the writer. For example, Jack Kerouac‘s brilliant timeless piece, “the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.“

When was the last time you heard someone use “burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles” in a day to day conversation? Unless you were talking to a drunk man. Or unless you were sitting across a poet high on something. Or unless it was a philosopher. Such people, like Jack, they think in rhymes. They ponder over deeper meaning of words. And they have a mastery over human emotions. And then equipped with all this, they coin new words and twist the rules of grammar, rules of language to create masterpieces. It must be such a pleasing sight to see such masters in action.

Truth be told, I would love to create poetry like that. I believe that its my reason, my purpose. To create poetry I mean. But I am not equipped to do it right now. In some time may be. I shall wait. Hopefully you guys wait as well.

And, second truth be told, I could get offended at the entire commonplace and plain jane remark but I choose to take it as a compliment. The Nidhi Kapoor Story is an important milestone in my writing career and I plan to, want to, evolve as a writer with every such milestone.

Anyway before I get into a rant, to summarize, writing is a battle between prowess with words to create poetry vs intent of narrating the story as if you’re talking out loud. I am definitely the later kinds. What about you? What is your forte? Writing poems? Talking / Thinking out loud?

Nidhi Kapoor BSODed

Posted originally on The Nidhi Kapoor Blog. This is a slightly modified version.

Unlike most writers, I write on a Windows based laptop. And I initially used tools like Omniwriter, Scrivener etc to get things written.

But then, as I went along, despite all the rich features that these writing tools offer, I craved for simplicity and flow. And thus, once I reached beyond 50,000 words, I moved my files back to good old Microsoft Word. All was hunky dory, things were great, till the blue monster showed his face. I am talking about Blue Screen Of Death aka BSOD.

The dreaded BSOD

Just when I was writing the climax scene of the story, the computer crashed. And along with it, it took the entire word document. And no, I could not recover it. The word document got corrupted and I tried retrieving it but despite all efforts and all software, only thing I got was a 200 page word document full of gibberish. It was as if my work of the last five months was reduced to the infinite monkeys punching on the keyboard at random.

I have nothing against getting compared to monkeys but what about all those promises I’ve made to all the friends? to myself? the promise I made to readers of tnks? What about my dreams of becoming a full-time writer? There were a million questions and I hit the panic button. And hit it again and again, so hard that I almost broke it.

But somehow, while I was shitting bricks, I remembered that I still have the story saved as a Scrivener project. I fired it up and voila, I had a large chunk of story there. I had shifted to Word about two weeks back and hence apart from whatever I did in last two weeks, the entire story was there.

If I could be honest, since I started writing the book, the last two weeks were when I made real progress, real breakthrough in the story. I made it lot more deeper, lot more interesting, lot more complex. I added layers and introduced more characters. I even killed an important character and un-killed someone who I had killed in the second chapter. Sadly, I cant recover any of what I wrote in last few days but the bright side is that I was not back to zero. Just that two weeks of my life went down the drain.

Thankfully, the story, the plot and the twists are still fresh in my head. With little extra effort, I am sure I can recreate all of it. Despite the setbacks, I remain committed to my deadline of finishing the first draft by end of the year. And I promise I will.

I dont know who to blame about the fiasco. The old laptop, or the operating system, or all the applications installed on my computer, or all the multiple windows that I keep open, or myself for being so callous about something as important as #tnks.

So lessons learnt?

A. Always always always take backup. Three times. And buy insurance. Just that you need to understand the pricing.
B. Keep calm and carry on. I shouldn’t have panicked. Things always tend to workout in the end.

Someone buy me this notepad!

Thats it!

And while I work towards writing longer and harder to finish the book in time, do help me spread word by sharing / liking the fb page. I am also looking for someone to help me with design around the book. If you know someone who can help me, do let me know.

And finally, please let me know if you would want to read and review the first draft of The Nidhi Kapoor Story.

What to expect from #tnks?

Originally posted on the Nidhi Kapoor blog.

Dear Reader of The Nidhi Kapoor Story,

In my opinion, a book is like any other product. Or a service. You pay a certain amount of money to buy / avail it and you put in a certain amount of time using / consuming it. And in return, you expect a certain amount of satisfaction. Money and time are tangible, I can measure them. Satisfaction is not. I cant measure it.

So before you commit either of the two, I thought I would make you aware of a few things about The Nidhi Kapoor Story (#tkns). This could also act as a sort of a disclaimer. Disclaimer in terms of what to expect from the story.

The story is very important to me
#tnks is one of the most important projects of my life. For a lot of reasons. For starters, this is the first time when I’ve taken a sabbatical and I know what I want to do with. This is the first time I am trying to write a full length fictional book. This is the first time I am going all-in with a project. This is the first time when I am actually trying to work towards a long held dream.

The promise
I made the promise that it would be worth your time to read the story. And I would do everything to fulfill the promise. I hope you would like what you read. If you do, please let me know. Nothing works better than feedback from people who’ve liked what you’ve written.

However if you do not like it, its even more important that you write to me and let me know that you did not like it. The best way to reach me is on email. For a faster response, please ping me on twitter.

As good as I am

#tnks is as good as I am. Not more. Not less. I am putting my best foot forward with it. I am putting in 6 very important months of my life on this project. And this is a very visible project. I do no want to fail at it. Someone once said, “I am scared of failure”. So am I. I will do whatever it takes to not fail with this story. I even made a tiny post-it note and stuck on my wall.

But all said and done, the story would be as good as I am. It will be bound by my imagination.

English as a language
I am not a native English speaker and I am not good with complex constructs of the language. Please expect a lot of mistakes in grammar, sentence formation, tenses, verbs etc. I am trying hard to improve on these things but I think I have hit my limit. I may not be able to come upto the standards of literary geniuses and The Grammar Nazis.

So, while reading it, if you find that I have massacred the language, please excuse me.

Original Story
The Nidhi Kapoor Story is an original piece of work. I hate the very concept of plagiarism.

Years back I used to maintain a fan-site for Lucky Ali and one fine morning I see pieces from the text I wrote appear on front page of Delhi Times without any attribution or credit. I couldn’t take on the might of TOI and I couldn’t do anything about it. For them, it was one of the million pieces of texts that they print on their paper. For me, it was my life. I put everything I had into that website. And I felt cheated. I felt dejected. I felt as if I have been robbed of everything I had. Its an extreme reaction and that blog meant that much to me. It taught me how it feels to be on the receiving end.

Thanks to that incident, I have never even thought of copying from someone else. And I am proud to say that the Nidhi Kapoor Story is my original work. The story, characters, plots, locations, everything else is inspired from real life people and real life incidents. However, if it does looks similar to something else, I assure you that it is purely coincidental. Please do let me know if you find similarities.

I guess that’s about it for the time being. Hope these things help you make an informed decision about #tnks. In case you choose to read it, I would love to know what you thought about the story. And if you dont, I would love to know why you dint. Please do write in.

And, like always, thank you for reading this.

Regards,
Saurabh Garg

P.S.: This may not be important for anyone else, but for me, its very very important. Because I would be custodian for your investment. Its my moral responsibility to ensure that your time and money is spent well.

We risk very little…

Anton Ego, the critic from Ratatouille!

In the words of Anton Ego, of the Ratatouille fame…

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new, an extra-ordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: ‘Anyone can cook.’ But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau’s, who is, in this critic’s opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau’s soon, hungry for more.

Do watch it on youtube here. This is writing at its finest. This is voice-over artistry at its best. This is story telling at its peak. This, this has to be one of the most powerful scenes I have ever seen in any movie.

So, the why do I want to talk about it?

Couple of reasons.

A, I loved the writing. So much so that I wish that I had written it. I am selfish like that. I hope that Nidhi’s story turns out half as good.

B, I am at a point in The Nidhi Kapoor Story where I am questioning the damn reason why I even picked up the project in the first place. I dont know why would someone want to read a cliched story of an actress and a police inspector. In fact, I am sure if someone gave me the book, I wouldn’t read it myself. I am actually worried that its going to be so bad that I would become the laughing stock of the entire town. And I am going to be scarred for the rest of my life (or whatever is left of it). Its going to be so bad that I may not want to write my personal blog either after all the Antons blast me for my badly written first book.

But at the same time, the little speech by Anton gives me a lot of heart as well. Like he says, all critics, they “risk very little”. And “the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than [their] criticism”. I am filled with hope that my little Nidhi Kapoor story has some meaning in the large scheme of things. Even if its helping me put a tick mark on my bucket list.

And not to discredit these critics, I think they have an important role to play in the entire process. An honest critic and critique could give that nudge that an artist requires to bridge the gap between being good and great. Anton was being harsh because, like he said, “If I don’t love it, I don’t swallow”. Loosely interpreted, it means that if he does not like what he eats, hes overtly harsh at it. And this makes chefs try harder to please him. Similarly a good book critic can actually help bring out the best in a writer. I think in all these years since I have been writing, I have not had a critic to help me, to nudge me, to prod me.

In fact with Nidhi Kapoor, I am looking forward to getting other people to review my work. Thankfully most of these first critics would be my friends and hence I assume that I’d have a pretty long leash with mistakes. Lets see if I can get an Anton Ego to help me make the story any better.

And btw, here’s a deal. If you think you want to play Anton, please do let me know.

P.S.: I cant seem to pronounce the name of the rat movie, even after trying so many times. And no, not wrong pronunciation, my tongue falters and I pronounce it as “rat-tat-tool-lee”.

How stupid I am

Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman, in this pep talk for the NaNoWriMo says,

The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist. And instead of sympathising or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm—or even arguing with me—she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, “Oh, you’re at that part of the book, are you?”

Yes. I am at that part of the book. And that’s how I feel about The Nidhi Kapoor Story.

Notes from Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank fever is up on me. Here are a few posts in the last couple of days about it.

So anyway, I saw the film and I decided to read the original short story by Stephen King on which the book is based. And I made notes alongside and I tried to think of Nidhi’s story while reading it. Here are some notes that I made while I was doing so. Might be of interest to some of you.

Oh, this assumes that you are aware of the Shawshank as a story. If you are not, a quick glance to the wikiedia page would bring you upto speed. And if you were to watch just one more movie in the rest of your life, please go see Shawshank. It’s that good. Not just me, but all those people on IMDB agree as well, for it tops the list of best movies made. Ever.

So coming back, here are the notes.

Nidhi’s story is similar to Andy’s. Not the jail and other things but the one before that. A society girl, a pro sportsman and an estranged husband. King took less than 6 pages to paint such a vivid picture of the story that I want to continue reading it even after it is over. I, on the other hand expect to take about 300 pages to narrate it. And I am assuming that someone would actually sit for all the hours it takes to read 300 pages and finish reading the story.
Apart from Andy’s story, there are a million simple little side plots in the story that are stories in themselves (Red’s story, the guy who smuggled his coin collection in prison and hid it somewhere, the clerk from the store that testifies against Andy, Jake the pigeon, the boss at Foodway etc.). Nidhi’s story on the other hand, is as flat, simple, straight, plain, bland as they come. Would one single long bland story interest readers? I dont know. I will find out though.
The dialogues are as amazing as they come. They are preachy, insightful and yet made up of simple words that I and other common folk would understand and comprehend. For Nidhi, I am not relying on a lot of dialogues but it would be nice to have some. I will have to work on it. I will do it.
Analogies (“every one of those seven has an ass as hard as the water drawn up from a mineral-spring well”, “the pigeon was just as dead as a turd”, “cockroach on a wedding cake”) etc. King seems like a master of these. I dont think I can cook such things. I dont think I have a vivid enough imagination to think of how to compare a prisoner who has broke out of prison to a cockroach on a wedding cake. Thankfully I dont really have any prisoners in Nidhi’s story but there are more than one shady characters. I need to get creative and start seeing a lot more cake shops, turds, mineral-spring wells. You get the drift I think.
I need to get creative with simple objects and make the narrative better. King calls a ten dollar note, a picture of Alexander Hamilton. I later found that Hamilton is one of those former presidents of the US and graces the ten dollar bill. The way Gandhi does most of our bills. I could have never imagined that I could call currency notes anything but notes. Or cash. Or wad. Or something like that. And not just currency, there is a lot. So I think once I finish one draft of Nidhi’s story, I would get busy with these interesting things.
Characters. I have come to understand that a story is about three things. Characters. Characters. And Characters. Everything else is useless. If you ignore the cliche and indulge me, most stories have the same structure and same plot. A common man is wronged by a situation or a person. The man then fights back and avenges the wrongdoing. And then lives happily ever after or dies in peace. Campbell actually wrote a book about this. You must read it if you are interested in writing or interested in characters. The way King creates these characters is amazing. Like the Warden. He does not talk about how bad or corrupt he is, there are only degrees that he can talk about. Instead he talks about another Warden and then simply says that the new Warden was twenty times badder than the previous one. Simple and yet effective.

All these things that I could take a note of, dawned onto me while I read the short story during the day, interspersed with bouts of fitful sleeping and trying to better my time at solving a Rubik’s Cube over a shitpot. It stands at 3 minutes and 40 seconds at the time of writing this. The world record, to put things in perspective, is 5.66 seconds.

To summarize, I have realized that I am not even half good as the tip of the nail of the pinkie of King’s lesser used hand. I know its early days for me. But then, I am on the road already and there is no stopping me now. The question is, how far do I get to travel on it and do I meet Stephen King somewhere down the road?

You, as the reader of the Nidhi Kapoor Story, could help me along that road. If you read it, please share your feedback on it. Make it as brutal and as critical. Point out flaws and hide the good bits. Make me suffer in the agony of my failure. Help me see things that I cant. May be, just may be, you would thus help me move on the road faster! And you know what? Thank you in advance for doing so.

And like I said in the beginning, do read the short story and do see the movie if you haven’t.

P.S.: This is day 5 on the trot that I have published something on my blog! Yay baby! Here are the links to the posts on 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th.

P.P.S.: If you are interested in reading a slightly modified version of this post that includes some headings, I posted it on the Nidhi Kapoor blog. No, not Nidhi’s blog. But the book’s blog.

Andy, Red and Nidhi Kapoor. sgMS. And Poker.

Today evening I was home and had nothing to do. I took out time and wrote that longish rant on freedom. And while writing the post, I read about Shawshank. And then I read some quotes and saw a few clips online. And then I got the movie and saw it.

While I was seeing the movie, a few really interesting things happened. For starters, it gave me insights into how I live my life viz a viz the inmates at Shawshank. And more importantly, it gave me insights into what all could be ~~still~~ done with The Nidhi Kapoor Story (tnks) to make it better. Let me use bullet points to talk about this further.

So far the story is about three characters, Nidhi, Renu and Prakash. The entire story is not really narrated by someone, as Red does in Shawshank. What if, tnks was narrated by someone. I dont know if this will make the material any good but it would be exciting for sure. It would also mean that I would have to rewrite a large chunk of what is already on paper. But then, I have a responsibility towards the readers of tnks and I have made them a promise and I would re-write as many times as I think is required to get the story in a readable shape. If not for twists and turns, I want people to have a good time while reading the book. So, over the next few days, I need to figure out the way forward.
Apart from the change narrative and the plot, the scene from Shawshank where Andy, Red and their gang is painting the roofs with tar, it gave me yet another gimmicky idea for marketing tnks. After all, beneath the damn bald (ing fast) head, I have a marketing brain on my shoulders. Its early days to talk about it here but I am really excited about it.
Live life from each character‘s perspective and then write it. And not as a journalist with a third rate publication. But as a real person. What emotions would someone go through if her favorite pets are killed? What emotion would a guy go through when the love of his life is fucking his best friend? What emotion would the reader go through while he is reading about the unfaithful girl? So on and so forth.

I know am not taking the story forward with these things but I am definitely putting shape to the ideas that I had in my head. And I believe that it would do a world of good. That’s it for Nidhi.

Apart from Nidhi, the other woman that occupies my head a lot is sgMS. I will talk about her now.

So, today, something interesting happened. I met this really old and really good friend for coffee. She knows me in and out and I really thank my stars that I am friends with her. She made me realize that my fascination for sgMS may be misplaced and I need to move on. She made me realize that if she is happy without me, actually enjoying her life without me being around, I have no right to interfere. What if she was brought on Mother Earth for me!

So, since its something that I can control by myself, I have decided to flip the switch and have decided to move on. And try and find some real love. I mean I know I cant find real love but I would let these accidents happen now. I would live. I would be free. Remember the post I made yesterday about freedom?

I know I have made this promise to myself at least a hundred times earlier, if not more. But this time, its for real. Andy, in Shawshank says, Get busy living, or get busy dying. Here is a poster.

Its one of THE most powerful set of words ever written. All this while, I was busy dying. Now, this day onwards, I am going to live. And get busy with it. And there is no place for sgMS in that busy life. But then the fact remains that she is above everything else. She defines the beginning. And she defines the end of all my endeavors. She is that important. Whatever we shared for whatever duration, was special and I feel blessed to have had that. But like every good thing, I guess the relationship has served its purpose. And I need to move on. And I would.

Finally, the third thing that I want to talk about today is poker.

Since I left my job in July, I have spent a large chunk of time playing poker. With real money, online and offline. And with moderate success. But then I realized that I was getting addicted to poker. Like I get addicted to all forms of games of chance. I promise that as a part of this get-busy-living phase of life, I would take a sabbatical from poker. I would read about it alright, I would talk about it, but I would not play. Except the coming week.

That’s if for the time being for an update and a blog post. This is also the third post in as many days. A welcome change, since I hadn’t written for a large chunk of this month. Do check out the FB page for The Nidhi Kapoor Story and Like it if you like what you see there.

P.S.: This is like a daily diary on steroids. Writing, fiction, fact, inferences, thoughts et al. Four days on the trot. Lets see how long do I continue it this time.

The first copy of #tnks

I just sold the first copy of The Nidhi Kapoor Story.

And I am so thrilled about it. So thrilled that I am still shivering as I write this.

It came as a surprise. At a moment when I wasn’t expecting it.

I bumped into VK’s mentor at a mall. I was seeing him after almost a year and even though he had a tough time remembering my name, he still asked me to stop by and bring him up-to speed about what I was doing in life. And we spoke for some 15-20 minutes on topics ranging from life to work to money to big-bangs and small fires and yoga and books. And just when I was leaving, he asked me what was I going to price the book at. I couldn’t think of a number and I said 99. He opened his wallet, flipped a 100 rupee note, gave it to me and said, “This is the advance for the first copy of your book”.

At that moment I didn’t make a lot out of it. But after he left and reality hit home, I realized what he had done. This has to be amongst the best things that anyone has done for/to me. Ever.

That time, I just said a meek thank you and left. But now, after all this time, I am speechless. Its been some time and I still cant think of a way to thank him for the gesture.

Sir, if you are reading this, thank for buying the first copy. Thank you for the motivation and support. Thanks so much for your faith and confidence in me. Hope you like it when you read it.

Category: #tnks