On the Transnational Nature of My Book
There’s a line in the viral Coke Studio song Tu Jhoom that I absolutely love. It says
Jo hai tera lab jayega karke koi bahana
Tere bas mein kuch vi nai ye dil nu eh samjhavan
Rendered soulfully by Sufi Queen Abida Parveen, it translates as—
Whatever is yours, will come to you under any pretext
(It’s best to) Convince your heart that nothing is really in your control
On the face of it, this song, and these lines in particular, point to the philosophy of complete surrender to the will of god. But I have a slightly different take on it as I describe in this post. To elaborate, I begin with a brief backstory.
I first began writing fiction seriously in the summer of 2019. I had spent the entire year reading fiction in all genres except horror, and I was ready to pen my own story. My first short story was about a fortuitous meeting between a traveling journalist and a reclusive actor on whom she had a crush growing up. It was my first entry into the domain of romance. Until then, even though most stories I wrote during my youth had romantic elements, none of them were proper romance. They were thrillers, murder mysteries, and “women’s fiction,” laced with romance. This short story, then, set the course for my professional writing career that culminated in the recently released first novel.
It was also kind of symbolic that I began writing this story on a flight from the U.S. to India because like my life, my teaching career, and my emotional connections, my fiction is infused with a strong sense of transnationalism. Not only in its content and spirit but also in the more tangible, logistical aspects.
I’ll explain.
Not satisfied with writing short stories, I began my first novel in April 2020 and completed the first draft in 44 days on 7 June 2020 at a respectable 88,614 words. But it wasn’t until October 2021 that I was finally ready to share it with a professional editor. After going through numerous rounds of editing and iterations of scenes, I queried 5 professional editors through Reedsy. The one I finally chose, Dionne McCulloch, not only had a connection to India but was also not physically based in the U.S. My story of love beyond national boundaries, then, traveled across the pond where it found love and care in the hands of a very capable editor. Dionne loved my writing and the book, which gave me my first reassurance that I was on the right path. She also helped sharpen the characters and eliminate extraneous or juvenile-sounding scenes, which resulted in the current shape of the story.
Fast forward to 2023, I made a New Year’s resolution to get the book out by my birthday in July. By February 2023, I had had the manuscript professionally proofread and was ready for a cover design. Again, I queried artists on Reedsy and the art of Zuchal Rosyidin caught my eye. Turned out, Zuchal was based in Malaysia, and together with the interior design artist, we collaborated and communicated across three time zones. And what a great job they all did! I could not have found better editors and artists for my debut novel.
The book was ready, only now I had to travel to India for a minor surgery for my father. My travel dates were pre-planned for the surgery, but it had taken longer to finalize the cover and the interior design to perfection. It seemed life had come a full circle as I sat in the home I grew up in—where I first began writing and dreaming—and hit the Publish button on 26th July 2023. However, since my author account on Amazon is based in the U.S., you will see the release date as 25th July. Such is the reality of transnational lives.
The eBook version was out, and a majority of my supporters and readers are eagerly waiting for the paperback version. But I didn’t want to release it until I had had a chance to look at a proof copy. Unfortunately, some things are still limited by national boundaries. There wasn’t a good way to expedite a proof copy to India. The easier way was to ship it to a trusted friend in the U.S. and have them check for the quality and binding. So that’s what I did. The book arrived last evening in the U.S. and it was checked by my trusted friends, and by me via video call. Everything looks good and hopefully, it should be available for purchase by the end of this week.
I circle back to the couplet I started with: Jo hai tera lab jayega, karke koi bahana. To me, these words imply that you can’t control the conditions around you but you can and must alter your response to these changes. Tere bas mein kuch vi nai e: nothing is in your control. Life has the potential to throw you a curveball when you least expect it. But adapt yourself to the situation to attain that which is rightfully yours.
Case in point, I had initially dreamed of a nice launch event to announce my book. Instead, I released the book at home, with my family on a video call, and the least possible hullabaloo over it. It wasn’t the grandeur of the event that I sought, it was the release of my book, a labor of love and perseverance of over three years. And thus, I found what is rightfully mine, the joy of releasing my first book into the world, while giving up the peripherals. Had I attached conditions to it, I would have lost out on the joy of my first book release. I got what was mine, but under a different set of conditions and that’s what this song means to me. What is rightfully yours will come to you in disguise. So, instead of a blind surrender to unseen forces, I put my faith in my ability to be malleable and adapt to the situation. Sometimes adapting means taking a circuitous route to your destination which means a longer journey. And delay. And that’s exactly the reason for the delay in releasing my paperback.
All I know for certain is this:
Paperback Edition Coming Soon! 🙂