Thursday, January 31, 2013

Book Review: Chasing Maya

Here's one of the latest book reviews of Chasing Maya - published as part of Debut Indian Writers Challenge 2013 and Reading Challenge 2013: First Reads

http://thetalespensieve.com/2013/01/28/book-review-chasing-maya/




Saturday, October 6, 2012

A Writer's Blog: Thank you for your continued patronage

A Writer's Blog: Thank you for your continued patronage: Dear readers, patrons and well-wishers, please do accept my genuine gratitude and appreciation for making the last six months of my life in...

Thank you for your continued patronage

Dear readers, patrons and well-wishers, please do accept my genuine gratitude and appreciation for making the last six months of my life incredibly special! Your support and encouragement has been an honor and will remain a matchless inspiration throughout my writing career. I rededicate ‘Chasing Maya’ to you all and thank you once again for the continued patronage. Leading online stores such as Flipkart and Infibeam are offering attractive offers on ‘Chasing Maya’. Kindly do spread word… For more details, visit:

http://www.flipkart.com/chasing-maya-9380707355/p/itmd7wa9hmqmspmz
http://www.infibeam.com/Books/chasing-maya-rohan-gogoi/9789380707358.html
http://www.uread.com/book/chasing-maya-rohan-gogoi/9789380707358

Cheers,
Rohan Gogoi

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Chasing Maya: An introduction to the characters

Invariably, our lives in this world are driven by some sort of mysterious forces that arise and subsist deep within us. Some of these forces, what we inoffensively call our ill-fate or misfortune, obstinately provoke us to chase illusively unending horizons, diverting us away from the greater purpose of our life, resulting in severe distress and endless frustration.

The characters depicted in this metaphorical fable are essentially the manifestations of some of these forces that human life is ceaselessly influenced and affected by. Though these characters are absolutely fictitious and are purely born out of my mind’s eye, in repeated instances, most of them live the forces and the influences that I have witnessed in the lives of the people around me or have personally experienced in my own life. ‘Chasing Maya’ is my attempt to proffer a perspective to the soul-in-pursuit-of true happiness about transcending the influence of these misleading forces of life.

Among all the characters in the story, the protagonist, Siddhartha Kumar is closest to me. I can relate to quite a few facets of his character…. But largely, he is a representation of the contemporary middle-class urban Indian, who today, in spite of being materially successful, is unhappy, frustrated, disoriented and directionless. I strongly associate with Siddhartha’s struggle around overcoming his obstinate complexes. I am fascinated by how, he, encouraged by the series of mystical experiences along his journey of self-quest, discovers that true happiness is his sole aspiration and concludes that a life of passion is the only means to achieve it.

Another character that really intrigues me is that of Baba Menon. Interestingly, like most other characters in the story, he too is a metaphor. He symbolizes the tendencies of stupor and inactivity that can creep into the psyche of any average human being. Nevertheless, he is a wise man, who, along with his eccentric wisdom, prefers to live in a world of his own. Baba Menon’s character has been conceived to reflect the intense inertness that the protagonist often experiences due to an apparent lack of a drive or a purpose in life.

Dr. Sapatnekar, on the other hand, happens to be my most adored character…. He reminds me of all those, who, since my very young days, have stood by me and guided my way. Dr. Sapatnekar’s character is an archetypical resonance of the protagonist’s inherent capacity to lead a life of genuine passion and true happiness based on his very own sense of direction, purpose and drive….

The characters of Maya, Dolly and Sukhon are inspired by my very own interpretation of various incidents of divergence and dilemma intermittently confronted by my friends from both the sexes. Together, the three women represent the multi-faceted anima of the protagonist. While Maya is the personification of the alluring mirage within him that he chases in sheer imprudence, Sukhon and Dolly stand before him as bold question-marks compelling him to seek undeviating solutions to the unresolved conflicts between his soul and his actions.

The simplest and the most truthful character in the entire story is that of Aparoopa. She lives the promise of a life of unadulterated love and true happiness… I genuinely feel some sort of an innocent pride when at the end of the book she subtly emerges as the source of a serene completeness to the protagonist.

A preview from the first chapter of Chasing Maya...

CHAPTER ONE: BURDEN OF MEDIOCRITY

“Honey, can you switch off the balcony lamps, please…? …And what are you doing there, by the way? It’s two-thirty, honey… Don’t you have to go to work tomorrow? You know it’s a Monday, right?”

…Aparoopa doesn’t ever fail to remind….

A yet another tedious night spent in dire puzzlement and despair and I see the morning sun meekly rising behind the thin ashen clouds… Phew! Pune’s weather can be unbelievably astonishing…

I look through my bedroom window and feel vaguely lost…. Not quite sure if I would really want to go to work today!

I push myself off to the balcony and lit a cigarette... and suddenly a gush of wild thoughts overwhelms me from all around… Why don’t I feel like going to work? Why do I hate my job? Why am I generally disinterested in things that I do? What is it that makes me feel incomplete though the world sees me as a fairly successful man? Why do I always feel that I am stuck and lagging behind? Why am I not happy in life?

“So Mr. Siddhartha Kumar, you didn’t sleep the whole night?” Apu, I mean Aparoopa, sounds terribly annoyed. “Fine, go ahead. Have a great Monday anyway!”

Honk! Honk! God… even these trifling traffic jams can be so irritating! Honk! Honk! Just one more traffic signal to cross and I am there at my office parking – all set to start a yet another eventful week! Evident pretensions, pointless discussions and needless confrontations – that’s the forecast for the week, as usual! In fact for the past nine years, life has ceaselessly been going through the same old stressful grind. Thank God, by now, I have somehow picked up the tactics to manage this world around; otherwise coming this far in my career wasn’t really easy…

Chasing Maya is receving great response and review on Flipkart. To book your copy visit http://www.flipkart.com/chasing-maya-9380707358/p/itmd7wa9hmqmspmz?pid=9789380707358&_l=d7izwEFQZLoDqctmJtMgDw--&_r=7HzcDJj6EWV6oQI+jO8Itg--&ref=8949e099-cf73-407b-886a-fbe95510a7e2