And when the story unfolded – along with the shock ending – it was so strong in my mind that I knew I just had to put it down. The theme of a writer and his obsession with his work also appealed to me. It was closest to me because it was the first story that I had conceived in my mind. What about the lead story “The Final Draft” That seems to be closest to you? I have also dealt with the impact of the pandemic in ‘The Cloistered City’ which speaks of a futuristic world that is ravaged by a mysterious illness. There are also one on the supernatural, a ghost story, one on an art heist, and even a children’s parable. Four of the stories deal with creativity and artists. “Patrol” – another of my favourites, is a true story of humanity in the midst of war. Then there is ‘The Well” which tells of a young school teacher in Kashmir who is raped by a Pakistani terrorist.
The title story, “The Final Draft” tells of a writer dying of cancer who is obsessed with completing his masterpiece. Well, each of the twelve short stories has its own theme and style. And that is how these twelve stories came about in their present form.Īnd tell us a little about the stories themselves. They actually came to mind overnight and I wrote them down in a quick burst of a fortnight or so and sent the revised manuscript to the publisher. By December last year, I had written ten and sent the collection to my publisher. Then as I started writing, other stories came to mind and other ideas germinated. In fact, I planned to call the book ‘Six Small Stories’. It started off with six stories that were already in my mind. You say you started off with half a dozen stories, but there are twelve stories in the book.
As I sat at home, I decided to pen them down and wrote down the stories one by one. Then on March 20 came the pandemic and the lockdown. I had a collection of half a dozen short stories in my mind, which I never got round to writing.
(Laughs) Well, short stories had actually been a form I was very interested in, which I had not ventured into earlier. In ‘The Final Draft’ you have ventured into a completely new genre – short stories.
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