- Writer- the upcoming book is a work of fiction comprising nine short stories, nine tragedies about pensive women with souls of poetesses and violent men with eyes of children.
- Written and directed two films; the first of them, a forty-minute experimental absurdist thriller was screened during the IFFI (International Film Festival of India) festival in December, 2009, being nominated for the best short film.
- Won numerous awards for work in poetry, poetic prose and flash-fiction at various blogs, online communities and webzines.
- Dramatist and co-founder of the theatre group ‘Prayaas’ wherein, has churned out original, contemporary plays along with several other adaptations.
- Served as guest columnist, Reviewer, Cinephile and film-theorist on renowned websites including the erstwhile site www.indianauteur.com
- Other interests: traveling, mime-art and painting.
ABOUT THE FORTHCOMING BOOK
'A collection of nine tragedies, nine stories; stories of urban solitude, lust, death, obsession, memories and marriages…..’
The Characters
...are washed-up, fallen Icaruses caught at that point in their lives when their cherubic idealism is just beginning to fade, segueing irrefutably instead into angst, disillusionment and that lovely oldness that manifests itself in crinkles around their eyes during their every wry and lopsided smile.
In search, of a time and a place they can all their own, they are still young but uprooted, still rebellious but rudderless. And these are the stories of their lives.
The Narrative Structure
...is not really interested in dwelling in the beginning or the end. Rather, it is the middle where the work tends to reside, intrigued as it is, not by the ‘denouement’ or the ‘set-up’, but by the ‘conflict’ itself.
The stories are often told in snapshots, moving directly from 'A' to 'C' and leaving 'B' for the reader to fill in. Sometimes, one story joins another when one least expects it and we see characters floating in and out of the texts.
The Language
...is quietly confrontational but also spectacular, diva-like; more on the verge of the melodramatic, than on the side of the strictly functional or generic. The lines are suffused with operatic excesses and a subtle violence.
The repartee here is not glibly, the irony here is to the point of heightened, evolved sadness and emotions are bare-naked instead of being swathed in quotation marks.
The Genre
...can be easily defined. While the stories figuratively take on the genres of mystery, war, period dramas, coming of age tales, love triangles and the surreal; they are all ultimately and undeniably, tragedies.
The Disclaimer
...to be remembered while buying it is that it is neither flippant, coffee-table book reading nor lazy, swaying-hammock reading. It is not pulp, local-train standing reading, it is not.
It might also be futile to look for humor, Hinglishness, character development and twist endings.
An Excerpt
"…the colony, if you were to call it a colony, had no name. The house itself was seedy, decrepit, as though a safe-keeper of secrets and scandals. It had many entries and exits and it was possible to get lost in it. In a particularly inspired stroke of whimsy architectural genius, it was almost invisible from the main road like HG Wells' ‘Magic Shop’. As a result, we had great difficulty when we had to explain our address to people back home.…."
The Release Date
Expected to hit the bookshelves by Feb-Mar, 2012.