Today I've handed over my blog to an old friend of mine, Sai Vadhan, whom I've know for simply ages. He's busy celebrating the release of the first of his Kronikles, so I reckon I'm going to let him say what needs to be said, because it's quite clear that he's got oodles of drive and passion for what he does.
India. 29 States. 1 600 languages. Each language has a culture. Each culture has a lore. I was four when my maternal great grandmother started with the most famous of them all. The story of Prince Rama and his wife Sita and the ten-headed king, Ravana, who kidnapped Sita.
Halfway through the story, she’d dose off. Her story would become slurred and her facts would be all wrong. I would correct her, much to the amusement of my mother and grandparents.
I loved my other grandparent, my paternal grandmother. I would sleep on her soft arm and she would tell me stories of my forefathers and how they were great rulers of their lands, how they hunted in the forest and chased after robbers, how fairly they treated their farmers and how everyone in the village used to eat in our castle.
I was a great conqueror in my mind. The swivel chair of my study desk was my chariot drawn by flaming horses. The old family sword with the beautiful hilt was my scimitar and my towel magically turned into a cape.
As I grew older, I started poetry. First it was love, then pathos and finally philosophy. I was all of twelve. That’s what happens when you do too much mythology. Poetry was just not enough. I started my first book. Needless to say, it was fantasy fiction. I finished it just a couple of years ago, much after Kronikles.
I forgot all of this as a young man pursuing law. Thereafter, life took me away from my fantasy world. My children’s demands for bed time stories reminded me of the stories I so loved. Memories flooded in. Stories abounded. Bed time rocked with both my children laughing away to glory or getting so scared by Raakshas and Bhoot that they’d fight over each other to snuggle up to me. I loved it.
That was when I created the character that would finally become the protagonist of my book. I did not have to worry about lab experiments going awry, getting bitten by toxic insects or wearing clothes of metal. All that was already figured out.
All I had to do was wade through the timeless waters of myth, explode through the colours of legend, freefall into thousands of years of stories which had time travel, flying machines, Demi-Gods and monsters.
So, while my children busied themselves with their academic pursuit, I figured it was time I pursued the one thing that gave me limitless bliss. Writing stories. I don’t know why I had not done it thus far. From that point onwards Kronikles took me nine years from concept to publishing.
Moral of it all: follow your passion! Without it we are mere automatons doing time to earn money. Sure, the home hearth has to be warm but…is that it?
Purpose comes to life when you pursue your passion. Doing drugs, taking selfies with celebrities, clubbing and drinking-mundane, empty, boring. Do whatever makes you tick (unless one is a mass murderer or a serial rapist or some such sicko, in which case I suggest jumping off a cliff without further delay!)
Go find a multiverse, see whether you like a curvature or non-curvature black hole (both exist), figure out what the universe is before you even attempt to find out why it’s there, stare at a blade of grass because who knows, may be its not you seeing the blade, maybe you’re helping the blade see itself!
Whatever else you don’t do, read.
Music and movies are good too! Writing books is more fun though!
Bio:
Vadhan writes novels, sometimes with poems in them and can sketch reasonably well. His first published book is Shatru, Kronikles Book-1.
Vadhan loves cricket, tennis, shuttle badminton, table tennis…and golf. He is proficient with four of the games. There is a golf course he recently visited which is now officially a crater! They had to call in the fire service to pull him out. The golf ball is still in there, somewhere. He is a movie buff. He loves fantasy, comedy, action and adventure movies and maybe prefers one of those funny love stories once in a while.
Transactional law practice, advising Indian MNCs on compliance frameworks for their business in India and ten other countries in North America, China, Asia Pacific and Europe takes up a chunk of Vadhan’s time.
His company, Sand Legal Services Private Limited, is ranked amongst the top 20 compliance service providers in India and has won the best corporate governance and administrative law practice awards in 2014 as titled as the company of the year award in 2014 for best legal compliance services by the international magazine, CIO review.
Vadhan is busy these days researching on the third instalment of Kronikles and for a legal thriller he is writing. A question often asked, how does he manage between practice of a niche segment of law and writing books?
When there is passion, anything is possible. Things will fall into place. Always.
Important: do it because you love it. Nothing else matters.
Warning: Golf is the exception to this rule!
ABOUT SHATRU
Shatru was half Asura.
That was not the reason why he was the best Hunter for the most powerful peace keeping force in all fourteen worlds. If he did not do their bidding, they would kill the one person he loved. That was just the way it was.
The Devas and Asuras, the most powerful of the Primordial Tribes shadow-controlled the financial, political and cultural lives of all of humanity just for one reason, domination over each other through control of terrestrials.
When the brittle line between adversity and aggression was broken they were set on a collision course. Shatru was the only one standing between them.
To stop the Primordials from destroying each other, Shatru had to go after an ancient sentinel of Chaos ready to do what it takes just to destroy.
Vengeance will rise.
Worlds will fall.
Evil will ascend.
Shatru is in the way.
If he doesn’t stop the war, ours will be the first world to wear away!
Kronikles Book-1
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