Connected: Free to act, bound to endure
₹250.00
By: Sumit kapooor
ISBN: 9789358384291
Price: 250/-
Page: 134
Language: English
Category: FICTION / General
Delivery Time: 7-9 Days
Description
About the Book
This book is a novella that consists of 26 chapters and has, in total, just under 42000 words. It is an attempt to bring forth the significance of our actions, irrespective or how big or small, and how we should accept gracefully and with open arms any situation we’re faced with as we, alone, are responsible for everything that happens in our lives.
This story is all about the choices we make in life and how everything that we do, small or big, creates a ripple or a wave in the vast ocean known to us as the universe and how these choices connect us with the rest of the world around us. It depicts, through various fictitious yet real-life characters, how we’re responsible for everything that happens with us throughout our lives.
There’s no single protagonist in this story as it revolves around various important characters that are essential for giving it a logical shape.
It is a mystery and one of the characters (Suhail) is passionately dedicated to solving it and connecting the dots so as to find out the “what”, “why” and “how” of it all. He’s instinctively bent on finding answers to his friends’ sorrows, not only for his friend but for his own satisfaction. This quest takes him through an eye-opening journey, where we, as readers get to know about various other characters who’re all intertwined with the story as well as each other directly or indirectly. The story is about real-life experiences that all of us have either heard of, read about or experienced ourselves, hence it’s easy to relate to the situations as well as the characters.
The plot, through Suhail, takes us through an interesting journey, back and forth in time, to help us understand the background of these characters. He’s a journalist and his job requires him travel extensively across India in search for stories and he’s been shown to be ingenious with his words and has his way with people. He goes in search of people connected to his friend, does a background search on them through his sources and then interviews the ones he can in order to get their perspectives and to help him connect the dots.
All of the characters he meets or the story talks about, are inspired by real people, walking around us. All of them have their own quirks and absurdities that feel real and relatable.
One of the main characters that the story revolves around is a guy called Deepak. They’re sides to him that we’re all familiar with and some of us even experience it in ourselves yet we despise him for who he is. He’s insensitive to others’ pains and all his actions are driven by his animalistic instincts that leads him to an undignified life of petty crimes, bereft of love and peace. He, along with some of his friends, tries to outrage the modesty of a young girl and beats up her friend who’re both in the same class as him, causing her friend permanent mental disability. Both these incidents leave eternal, tormenting scars on the girl’s soul and pushes her into a world full of hatred and woes. As for her friend, it devastates his father’s life who has no one apart from him in the name of family. Deepak’s continuous impulsive actions combined with these heart wrenching incidents draws in more characters who contribute to further the plot, eventually bringing him to justice.
Suhail and his friend, get their answers in the end and although it doesn’t relieve or take away the pain felt by some of the characters who apparently come across as flawless and undeserving of such agony, it goes on to prove in the end, how one thing leads to another and how our impetuous actions however harmless or inconsequential they seem to us, can snow ball into unimaginably massive repercussions. The characters seem to make peace with their respective situations and moves on in their lives which once again consolidates our faith in humans’ adaptability to any given situation.
About the Author
I am thrilled to share a bit about myself and how this book came about.
I have been successfully running my telemarketing business for nearly 18 years now. I don’t like generalising however in my experience of living and doing what I have been doing for a long span of time, I can conveniently say that majority of us, at some point in our lives, do feel a sense of boredom, irrespective of how well we’re doing in our lives. That’s the nature of routine. It urges you to break free after sometime. So, even though I relish what I do as it’s fulfilling and offers a great sense of satisfaction, it is a monotonous job after all. So, I’ve always wanted to do something creative in my free time and I’ve tried my hands at making some funny videos on YouTube a few years ago, but I decided to put an end to it as the whole process of it was extremely time consuming.
But like they say, and now I know, if you really and truly want something and you’re constantly thinking about it, the universe around you actually conspires to put it all together for you. I know it sounds hackneyed but when I’ll tell you how this story or book was conceptualised, you’d probably agree with me. I’ll also humbly say that I don’t think the credit of writing this should come to me but I realise there’s no space for the metaphysical in this practical world, so without being too discursive, let me share with you, briefly, my journey into writing this book.
I did my graduation in English just over 20 years ago and after having read some of the best and highly renowned authors (the likes of D.H Lawrence & Samuell Beckett) who’re still spoken of with a lot of respect in the modern day world, I felt I was evolved into someone more confident and elevated. I developed a new perspective of looking at things and then somehow my interest took a sudden shift. I got more interested in the topic of existentialism and finding out the significance of life. This sudden sea change was too radical for me to ignore. It drew me out of the famous western philosophers and English authors and I found myself in the midst of all our Indian gems that we don’t generally care too much to read. So, I discovered “The Bhagawad Geeta”, “Upanishads” and many other hidden gems that I till date study. This gave me a whole new perspective on how things seem at a superficial level and how they actually are.
Then one day about 6 years ago, in my sleep, the idea just fell upon me. The whole idea of how we’re all connected to each other through invisible strings created by our own deeds suddenly became so clear. The dream was so lucid that it seemed real and presented itself as a story to me. The next day, I got up early and started writing it down without any second thoughts. I was ready with the framework within an hour and finished writing the 1st 5 chapters on the same day.
It was a conscious decision to write it in plain and simple language to lay more emphasis on the idea and not the writing style.
I can only hope that, through the medium of this story, I was able to do justice to the central idea for which it was written in the first place. I truly want the readers to appreciate the message I’ve tried to convey through this book.
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