Road to My Writing Career

When I was young I wrote many letters to my friends and relatives. They thought my writing was good. Aside from that, I never did much of any writing except for those pieces on composition in school and the letters to my business associates after I joined my dad's company in 1971. We were in the business of selling color dyes and chemicals to the textile units in and around Bombay up until 1995.

I did read a lot though - everything from children's stories to the literary classics interested me at different stages in my life. Some of my old comics are still lying somewhere in the dusty attic up somewhere. The sight of the "Phantom" romancing with "Diana" stirs me up even now. James Hadley Chase and Perry Mason were among my early favorites. And believe me, I liked Denise Robins and Hermina Black. Way back in 1968 I thought I was in love with my father's best friend's daughter. And she gave me all those books about being in love.

Then one day my destiny brought me to a psychic medium or a face reader or whatever it is you call these people. I think it was in 1989. It was only because my neighbour had invited him to his house that I had the chance to meet with him. He narrated events from my life that even I had forgotten. He prophesised boldly that I would be making my living in a foreign country, that too as a writer! That was a time when labor unrest was forcing the textile mills in Bombay to shut down. Gone were the days when we did not even have to remind our buyers for our payments. We were stuck in an endless cycle of delayed receipts and payments. So, being a writer seemed not a bad idea.