Skip to main content

Author Highlight: Tapan Ghosh Discusses his New Book ‘An Anglo-Indian in Love’ and Stories from his Life

We are back with another author interview. Today, with us, we have Tapan Ghosh – the author of ‘An Anglo-Indian in Love’. In this interview, Tapan Ghosh talks about his writing aspirations, and the route to getting his book published. Stay on...while we chat with him.

What motivates you to write?

Life has taught me that life itself is the greatest motivation a writer can have. Key incidents in my life and the lessons I have learnt from my mistakes are two major sources of material I use in my writings.

How do you handle the response to this book, especially from your friends and colleagues?

Any honest opinion is good to understand the reader’s viewpoints and expectations. It serves as a guide to what’s working and what’s not. At a deeper level, it’s a two-way process. They get to know me through my writings, and, strange as it may sound, I get to know myself better from the feedback I get. What this really means is, a reader may interpret something you have written in a manner completely different to what you had in mind when writing it. The feedback makes you sit up and discover a facet of your personality you never knew existed.

What kind of research did you do to pen An Anglo-Indian In Love?

This novella is based on real-life incidents I was witness to as a school boy in Calcutta and inputs from friends from those days. The characters are based on real people. In that sense, the story is a fictionalised version of fact.

Can you name some of your favourite authors and novels?

Earnest Hemingway (all his writings), DH Lawrence (Lady Chatterley's Lover, Women in Love), George Orwell (Animal Farm, 1984), Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities) and Robert Lewis Stevenson (Treasure Island).

Do you think writing a book from the comfort of a bedroom is possible?

The best thing about writing is that you are not limited by location or time. A thought can occur anytime, anywhere. I key down my thoughts on my cell phone as soon as they strike me. Sometimes, these take the form of a quote. I then work on these thoughts and weave them into a story. Earlier, I used a BlackBerry; now an iPhone.

Do you have a favourite place to write? Such as a beach or the hills?

I write wherever my work takes me, though writing is not my work, it’s my passion. And a passion is powerful enough to make the creative juices flow, regardless of place or time.

What inspired you to write this book? Any tales to tell?

All the tales to tell are in the book itself. And the other tales are not to do with the book, but with me. I live life to the fullest, and to do so, I live on the edge all the time.

What was your biggest learning during the publishing process?

On a lighter note, you may have conceived the baby, but it is the publishing process that delivers it to the world.

Looking back, what did you do right to break through as a writer?

Patience and perseverance. Writing is one of the loneliest professions in the world. You have to keep at it.

Any advice for budding writers?

Stick to the truth! The words will flow automatically.
Something personal, readers don’t know about you?
I hold an engineering patent.

Any books in the pipeline?

Yes. Flirt With Life (a compilation of my quotes), Speak A Lie To Tell The Truth (fiction) and Engineering Doctor (non-fiction).

Connect with Tapan Ghosh:

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TapanGhoshTheWriter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TapanTheWriter
Website/Blog: http://www.tapanghosh.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tapanghoshthewriter/
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poem Summary: Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Short Summary: This poem is written by Rabindranath Tagore during pre-independence days, when India was a colony of the British. The underlying theme of the poem is absolute freedom; the poet wants the citizens of his country to be living in a free state. According to the poem, we see that the poet is expressing his views there should be a country, like where people live without any sort of fear and with pure dignity…they should
67 comments
Read more

Book Review: The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond

Among all Ruskin Bond books, The Blue Umbrella has, so far, gathered immense applaud from readers and critics alike.  This is a short novel, but the kind of moral lessons it teaches to us are simply overwhelming. This is a story of Binya, a poor little girl living with her mother and an elder brother, Bijju, in a small hilly village of Garhwal. One day while herding her two cows back home, she stumbles upon some city people enjoying the picnic in the valley. She is enthralled to see them well-groomed and rich. She craves to be one like them and among many other things of their, a blue frilly umbrella catches her attention. She begins craving for it. On the other hand, the city people get attracted by her innocent beauty and the pendant in her neck. The pendant consists of leopard’s claw – which is considered a mascot widely in the hills. Binya trades her pendant off with the blue umbrella. The blue umbrella is so much beautiful that soon it becomes a topic of conversation fo
63 comments
Read more

Poem Summary: Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias is a short poem of fourteen lines written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The concurrent theme of the poem is that nothing remains intact and same forever in this world. Even the brightest of metal, one day decays with passage of time. The throne name of Egyptian King Ramesses is Ozymandias. It was his dearest desire to preserve himself forever by building a huge statue that he thought would never tumble down. Stanza 1: I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; Summary: The poet narrates the poem through the eyes of a traveler who seems to have come back from a remote and far-away land, referring to Egypt. The traveler r
23 comments
Read more