3. MY DREAM
What is my Dream?
• To get a book of short story with
poetry published
• To sell 1,000 copies of the book
Why?
• I feel I need to tell what I
have to tell to people who
like reading funny and
flowing writing.
4. HOW WILL IT COME TRUE
Budget = Rs. 1,50,000
Cost Breakup
• Pre-Publishing = Rs. 16,000
• Prepare manuscript to circulate to publishers - free
• Proof Read – Rs. 1,000
• Editing & Cover Design – Rs. 10,000
• Foreword – difficult to get for a newbie author so cost is nil.
• Obtaining Copyrights - Rs. 5,000
• Getting ISBN number - free in India
• Printing = Rs. 1,00,000
• Typing and Typesetting – Rs. 10,000
• Publishing Cost – Rs. 90,000
5. HOW WILL IT COME TRUE
Post Publishing/ Marketing = Rs. 34,000
• Distribution Costs – Rs. 25,000
• Marketing on Website and Social Networking platforms – Rs. 9,000
Time Frame = 9 months (September 2012 to May 2013)
• Manuscripting – 3 months (September to November)
• Typing/Typesetting & Proof Reading – 1 month (December)
• Printing and marketing – 5 months (January to May)
6. SNEAK PEAK INTO THE BOOK
HORRORS OF MY MIND
Chapter one – The eagle has landed.
Loneliness….a word you have heard for so long and so often. It cannot be defined. It is as conspicuous as air. I have
seen two kinds of loneliness in this world. One that you feel when you are all by yourself and wish someone was
there. Someone who would watch from behind while you ignored that person so as to give yourself a sense of false
importance. The other kind is the one which you feel when you are amongst all the people you have in your life. You
still feel the absence of someone whom you could talk to. That is the kind of feeling I am undergoing with every
breath that I take. Am I lost?
You would be wondering what am I talking about? That is obvious. So I start from the day I was born. It was the
month of September 85 – honestly I am not sure of the weather then but these days September month is marked by
rains which reach the pinnacle of monotony, having begun early in the month of July. My mother had been on a fast
the day before I was due. It was festival of ‘Teej’ which she did not want to skip. Though she stood out as a
wonderful wife for this but this did not help her get in my good books. Wonder what I could have been had she not
been on the fast. One extra day of nutrition! My skinny days had started there and then in her womb itself. Don’t dare
laugh! It’s not funny at all.
7. SNEAK PEAK INTO THE BOOK
But as was expected, I landed on this earth on the eighteenth of September – a
day which would someday be rated as important as the second of October or the
fifteenth of August. But this was not supposed to be as easy as it sounds. It was a
sticky situation. I was quite a weakling at birth – underweight by quite a number.
But that was not the problem. Doctors had found out that my spine was not as
strong or as solid as people normally are blessed with. It was fluid in some
sections. It would eventually solidify only if I survived the initial scary phase of
being handled well. Doctors were of the view that I immediately be referred to a
hospital in Vellore where they say this could be dealt with. My parents had freaked
out by then. Poor fellows!
Had they known this would happen nine months earlier they would have never had
me at the first place. All the Gods that Hinduism can support coherently and
without ambiguity were summoned at the earliest. Wonder how? My grandma – the
best network to Almighty guaranteed.
Was it fate or was it a miracle – it’s hard to say but things were not that grave 24
hours later. Now the warning of the doctors had mellowed down from an impending
fatality to a mere inability to walk in the future. But my grandma was a very tough
nut to crack then. She would not give up that easily - a hard bargainer to say the
least. A second summon was sent to all the potent Gods to do their stuff. But
before they could even acknowledge the receipt of the request, she took it upon
herself not only to see me healthy (wealthy and wise understood) but also walk,
run, jump, skip , fly etc. (sorry. not fly! just went with the flow not realizing that
gravity would get upset if I ever did that).
8. SNEAK PEAK INTO THE BOOK
Getting discharged from the hospital was easy. My parents were given a codebook
of instructions that read – ‘HOW TO KEEP AN ANGEL LIKE ME HAPPY?’ (I
wonder how many of you have started thinking whether there exists such a book.)
but the few instructions that I got to know about later were - not to make me sleep
on my rear side but my tummy side (which I do even till today) and not to let me cry
which I was quite talented at. My tears if harvested would have solved water
scarcity problems in many a countries today. Water ministry is still to respond to the
proposal though.
As I grew up my grandma and mummy did more than their best in bearing my non-
sense. I was quite unique in my ways. I never touched the milk bottle. I was spoon-
fed since a very early age. It needed a team of dedicated people to feed me. One
would hold my hands. My legs would be in another’s grip. Mummy would thrust the
spoon in my mouth and I would help them out by gulping down the stuff that had
irritated my taste buds and upset my oesophagus. Children who ate their own stuff
without any dissent were mythical characters to my mother. As a result of this
intense labour my bodyweight never attained satisfactory levels. My race to size
zero was on.
Those who were able to look beyond my much sought-after physique saw me as a
smart Alec whose wit could undo the most pompous of reputations. Ideas cropped
in my mind as fast as a clock’s tick. I would blurt them out in public and people
would show their appreciation by having a hearty laugh at the one who was the butt
of my jokes. If ever I overdid something I was given a dressing down which kept me
grounded to my elements. However the reputation of a jester had started taking
flight.
