As an only child who hated any form of sport or the outdoors, I’ve spent a large part of my childhood being lost in the dream world of books. I was known as the quintessential, garden variety bookworm, with thick glasses, found with a book in hand, often dreaming. Growing up, Baba forbade me from reading romances―I guess that was his way of ensuring I don’t fall in love, because let’s face it, a dreamer and love? Not a very bright idea and he knew it. I, of course, rebelled. I was his daughter after all; hiding books inside thick volumes of Science or Social Science, reading with a torchlight under the blankets, I have done it all.
Back in those days, we had limited access to books. Actually, the only access was the school library once a week. I would borrow a book, only to finish it in a day. Bored with the wait, I began to scribble my own stories pretending I was the protagonist in the book I was reading, trying out different scenarios. Writing gave me an outlet to express myself, to capture the elusive, colourful dreamland that to me was more real than reality. Soon the scribbles turned into poems and short stories, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever conjure up a scenario where I’d be sharing these with anyone else.
Years passed and I got busy with studies, work, and trying to build a life for myself. I didn’t have enough time to continue my obsession with reading, let alone writing. And for the next fifteen odd years, life became a blur of responsibilities, milestones, goals. I earned my masters, joined a corporate role, got married, bought a house, had a beautiful child, where was the time?
Once my two-year-old son, akin to a tiny hurricane, decided to sleep through the night, I suddenly found a lot of time on my hands. I immediately jumped back into the world of books. A lot had changed with the advent of online bookstores and digital copies and now I had instant admission. I went berserk, completing a novel every
second day. As I read book after book of all those soft-hearted, steamy romances that I’d craved, I realised something was different. I still loved romance, the idea of being
in love still caused a riot of emotions in me, but it left me dissatisfied. Instead of just being happy with the idea of a beautiful, hot girl meeting a handsome, rich guy I started to look for more. Agreed, there were many that wrenched my heart, but the helpless yet perfect damsel in distress had me cringing and the passionate tall, dark,
broody men no longer excited me. The way men kissed girls without any sort of preamble had me worried about consent. My beautifully constructed dreamworld, that I’d grown up with had crumbled. The rose-tinted glasses had come off and instead, I saw the stories through the lenses of an adult. Who has had to fend for herself, made a bunch of mistakes and lived through the consequences, did not have her life figured out, who was kind yet occasionally self-centred, stubborn, ‘over-emotional’. In short, imperfect.
So, I took the pen to paper or in my case my fingers to the keyboard and Unloved in Love was born. It is my attempt to tell a story of humans that are imperfect. Who
sometimes make the wrong choices, fail, are selfish and break hearts, yet who continue to love, continue to hope, continue to march on in life with as much finesse as that of a clown disguised as a trapeze artist.
When I started writing, I hadn’t really imagined it becoming a full-fledged novel. There was no storyboarding, character outlines, narratives. There was just a vague storyline and there were Kiara, Kyle, and Karan, my protagonists. People like us, like me and you; who forge lifelong friendships, who brush away the feelings, who
meet conflicts headlong, who avoid decisions, who desperately try to fit in.
Through this book, I wanted to reach out and tell my readers, life was not a fairy tale and happily ever after was overrated. There would be battles, all hell would break
loose sometimes, there would be days when getting out of bed would be a struggle, but there would also be joy, there would also be love, sometimes the explosive,
steamy kinds but what would stay was the ‘warm fuzzy blanket’ kinds, the ‘familiar, well-worn t-shirt’ kinds. That there would be mistakes, there would be disappointment but you’d survive and learn to love your flaws and someday hopefully you’d find someone who would love them as much.
Unloved in Love is a story of three imperfect lives, joined together with a common feeling of being unloved, I’ve seen them falter, fail, get back up and walk again and
enjoyed writing every moment of it and it’s my sincere hope that you as a reader would enjoy it too.
The book is available online and in all major bookstores.
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