I grew up with my grandparents' stories...
And I wanted the same for my children. When my father began to tell his stories to my children, I was excited for them, but my children's eyes soon glazed over, they began to stray to the nearest blinking device and my encouragement quickly turned to exasperation. But then I thought: what can I do to bring my father's stories to my children in a format they can understand and relate to? And could I do this for everyone? Research has proved what I instinctively knew: that the more children know about their families, the stronger their sense of well being.
My grandparents' story is the inspiration for my second novel, surely I could do for my children what I was doing for myself. Surely I could do it for many others. And so was born 'A story in me'. Over the course of the last two years, I have had the priviledge of capturing several life stories, I have been to jungles with shikaaris, to the depths of hunger, to dark despair before incredible sucess. Every lifestory is a revelation; I have worked with many people who felt nothing interesting ever happened to them only to discover a treasure trove of little illuminations which, when set together, had the brilliance of a chandelier.
Why should you trust me with your life stories?
I am a writer with a published novel and a second on the way. My short stories have won awards: notably the Louis Des Bernieres award for fiction writing and the Michael Holroyd award for non fiction wirting and the Magic Oxygen Literaray Prize. I have been published in the Bangalore Review and The Barren Magazine. I have worked in consumer research and have conducted one-on-one interviews.
But more than anything else, I love listening to and recapturing stories of a bygone era. Nostalgia is my forte, in the choice between the past and the future, give me the past anyday.
