Author Interview: Dr. Nitya Prakash, #ANTINATIONAL

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antinational, award-winning, book, book cover, book launch, dialogue, emotions, fiction, interview, malpractices, medical, Novel, novel launch, official trailer, prelaunch

Interviewed by Purvi Petal

Dr. Nitya Prakash is a versatile personality – a writer, a banker, a management expert, an investment consultant, software engineer, motivational speaker, media man, all rolled in one. He is the author of the much-hyped romantic novel ‘Dear, I Hate You’, thriller fiction ‘R.I.P. In the Name of Love’ and popular fiction ‘Little Lucknow’. He was born and brought up in the city of Nawabs – Lucknow, UP (India). He did his computer graduation from the University of Lucknow, Lucknow followed by an Executive Management Program from K.J.Somaiya Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai and also a Post Graduate Diploma in Banking Management from ICICI Manipal Academy, Bangalore. He is NSDL and AMFI certified, which enables him to work as an investment consultant. He is a ferocious reader and a prolific writer and has been regular in writing many youth awakening articles in TOI and many other reputed magazines. His fun one-liners are extremely popular amongst his ever growing reading populace. He is the Co-Founder of Creative Ecstasy, Dronacharya and The School on Wheels India. In fact, there is such a long list of his achievements, that this space feels threatened in running out in my attempt to cover him. Rather than go on about his past achievements, I had the man talk to me about the latest from his pen, an intriguing new book titled ‘Antinational’.

Why ‘antinational’? Just because it is the current buzzword?

Ever since I gathered the wisdom to think about the way people behave, I was always fascinated with the belief that I have something worth sharing about human psychology with the wider world around me. Antinational talks about human emotions while the story builds on the medical malpractices in our country.

Could you describe the reader you were writing for?

If you’re active on social media platforms, then it’s even easier to find out what readers like, provided you get some traffic. You can tell when your audience responds to a particular post because there will be comments and links that show that people thought that your content was worth reading. I find that a good technique for deciding on new content is to look at what readers’ interests are and write articles and books that cater to those interests. When writing a book, I look for books that got a good response, as well as for the questions that readers have asked. These provide a good starting point for thinking about new material.

What makes you tick as a writer?

Most writers claim they write only to entertain, and yet messages do creep into our books whether we will it or not. I don’t write just to entertain but to write the stories I want to read, stories that no one else has written. And still, the messages are there: nothing is as it seems, we are not necessarily who we think we are, history did not necessarily happen the way we think it did, and what we see is not necessarily the truth. But all that was more of a side effect. Mostly I just want to write good stories with good characters that I would have loved to read.

Did you find the characters changing as you wrote, or did they stay true to your early conception of them?

I always ensure that I do proper justice to my characters. I try my best to keep them who they are.

Your spin rate of your works is amazing. Is it that easy to write?

I am a compulsive writer. Writing is hard because we’re human. We’re scared, fragile beings who think of every single excuse to procrastinate that which we ought to be doing. This is what is hard about writing: it never ends. You can put your “game face” on for 24 hours or a week and succeed. But that’s not what makes a writer. That’s why we call it “the writing life” — it consumes who you are and what you do. The difficulty of writing has nothing to do with pen and paper, monitor and keyboard. It has to do with heart and soul and the mind behind the words. That’s the real hard part of writing, the part that will experience all kinds of internal resistance: convincing yourself that no excuse is good enough to not write.

So now that you know the hard part, the rest is easy. That’s how I write.
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Any favorite genre? As a writer and as a reader?

My favorite genre is fantasy as a reader. Books like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings I greatly enjoy and could read multiple times. The back story, history, names, fantasy elements, and story are unforgettable and resonate well after you’re finished putting it down. The way I would describe it is ‘completely delectable’. I tend to enjoy the philosophical genre most when writing. I think I like it because it generally includes many stories that touch on the functions of people and their roles in society. It covers much about ethics and morals and the experiences of many.

Which book inspired you the most (how) while which one impressed you the most (why) ?

Books are possibly my favorite thing ever. Looking at my bookshelf now is like looking at a little timeline. Each book reminds me of what was going on in my life at the time. When I was younger I fell in love with Fredrick Forsyth’s “The day of the Jackal” and that book really kicks started my love of reading. The conspiracy plot in the book was great. Oh no, I really want to list all the books on my shelf but that will just take forever. I have more than 4500 books in my personal library. I am a diehard fan of Fredrick Forsyth, Agatha Christie, and Ruskin Bond. The top five books, I would like to recommend from my bookshelf are: The day of the Jackal by Fredrick Forsyth, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie, The Sensualist by Ruskin Bond and Srimad Bhagwat Gita by Ved Vyasa.

You are into multiple occupations, or should I say, interests. How do you keep up with them and which one is closest to your real self?

 

I am good at multi-tasking. When I’m engaged at work, I fully engage myself for defined periods of time. When I’m renewing, I truly renew. Make waves. I don’t live my life in the gray zone. Training people is the best thing to undertake and it is the closest to my real self.

Funny but a regular question, which one is your favorite or the work dearest to you? Why?

One novel sits on my desk at all times: In the Name of Love, R.I.P. There are many other books by me that I adore, but this is my personal favorite book, the one I keep nearby for writing inspiration. ITNOL changed me in an unforgettable way.

A word or phrase you often use in your writing.

‘Let bygones be bygones!’

The last line of your autobiography will be…

‘It’s me being me, making you be you…’

 

Would like to hear from your own mouth, a precisely detailed account of your writing journey!

It’s been an incredible journey (and not always an easy one). Allah called my father to rest in peace when I was two years old. I never had any interest in what other boys of my age were into. No cars and no action men figures. It was all about the books for me. At the age of eleven, I wrote my first article for The Times of India. After completing my formal education I started my career with MicroSave (A Bill & Melinda Gates foundation company) and then I worked for a couple of years in ICICI Bank as an International Trade Finance Manager. But, I never found myself in the medium; it was too scattered for me. My professional writing journey started with writing research papers on microfinance and then Dear, I Hate You happened. My first novel was a tribute to my girlfriend who passed away in a car accident and it fetched immense love and respect from the readers and critics. I love experimenting with my life and also my books. It is assumed that an author understands that he is writing for his readers, not for his own fascination and every time my readers want new stuff from me. My first novel was a romantic fiction, the second one was a thriller, the third one was on child psychology and the fourth one is a paranormal research work. Fortunately for me, experimenting to explore the creative ideas I didn’t even know existed is easy. I just have to do something new.

This has been an amazing talk session! Thank you for being a guest on my blog.

 

Dr. Nitya Prakash, the award-winning bestselling author, trainer, and success coach interviewed here can be reached and his credentials further explored at these Links:

Amazon | Goodreads | Facebook | Wikipedia | Website

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This interview was conducted in the context of Dr. Nitya Prakash’s  upcoming novel, ANTINATIONAL . The Official Book Trailer of ANTI-NATIONAL is out now.

Youtube link : https://youtu.be/W0CJWK2U4i8

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P.S. ~ The questionnaire is copyrighted and the intellectual property of Purvi Petal. The first publication rights to the interview rest with Purvi Petal. The interview can be reproduced only with prior explicit permission of Purvi Petal and the interviewed. A clear bold mention and ping link to the original interview along with the name of the original interviewer, Purvi Petal, as well as the interviewee must be made when reproducing the interview in part, as an excerpt or as a whole.

 

Silent Night, Holy Night : Summer Solstice mates The full Moon

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a room of one's own, balcony, copyrighted, discipline, fullmoon, night, selfclicked, selfwritten, staring at the sky, starrynight, stars, stories, welcomed #room

This is what you literally call, lying under the stars. 
As I lie on the wooden boarding of my high rise bedroom floor, the stars, the sky are just there, an eyelength away. A handful smattered over the dull dark sky, tweeting me tiny stories like striking matches on a damp stack of logs. Welcome, night, when the moon, just a day ago, stretched itself enough to then begin coiling back to sleep and it feels like the only luxury you need, to have your own room in an apartment that gives you windows wide enough to watch them, the uncut diamonds scattered and sparkling. And then, in a while, you close your eyes only to wake to the sunrise. Who told being hung in air, like you were nowhere, felt like heaven? I tell it for now, I say it for tonight.
Gudnight.
~ Purvi Petal , 22 Jun ©2016

Note: #copyrighted. Please do not use the photo and the write without my explicit permission.

#starrynight #selfclicked #selfwritten #copyrighted #roomofonesown #discipline #welcomed #room #balcony #stars #fullmoon #staringthesky #stories

Secret Of True Love: Poems from the Heart – A Review

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experiences in love, goodreads, heart, hurt heart, Life, love, man, pain, perspectives, poetry, review, woman

3/5 * ( #GR Review) I personally do not like rating poetry books. If they are authentic, non-plagiarized poems then they are an interaction, a relation, a relatability of the reader with the poetic expression, in that moment of reading. What clicks once might or might not click the same way each time. Or what didn’t bring out any feeling the first time, might become a totally different experience the next time. Finding meaning, relevance, connectivity or joy in a poetry book , as opposed to a prose book, depends more on the reader than the poet. It is a one to one experience, unparalleled. The characters in this poetry book Secret Of True Love: Poems from the Heart, by The Duke Of Quails, are more like participants of a slam. Some female, others male, their interconnectedness through the daily grind called life bring out one repeated fact closer home: the escape of one is another’s prison. Part of the matter-of-factness of these characters and the lives they lead, in which time is parceled out in units that they make, is expressed in this experience that at times love is just a sense of belonging or interestingly, sex. At other times, of course, it brings emotions: wonder, surprise, grief, respite. But the strongest feeling that emerges is that of loneliness, of loneliness ‘despite’ what they have had is love in between. A relatable book for those who swear by the pain of love. Check it out.

Barking Bitches

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cheap jokes, dirty minds, disgusting sense of humor, jokes, mind, nonsense, sense, successful, thoughts, words

This post is dedicated to all those people who have nothing better to do than keep uploading the most ridiculously irritating WhatsApp and facebook jokes, cracking their nutty heads on how heads of states or industries are what they are, despite all their hatred for them. It is dedicated to all those mindless maniacs who keep racking their own aimless brains and wrecking the busier brains of those forced with forwards, regardless of the realization as to how senseless, useless and worthless each such a forward is. I wish, all the time and energy they spend on such forwards, they would rather spend on either burning their calories or earning their tax (which they are supposed to pay but probably don’t, and that is why they are so unbelievably free! :O )
I firmly believe that these idiots are none other than those who cut a joke on themselves the first time when they went and told their parents proudly, how they were ‘outstanding’ (and not how ‘outstanding’ they were, as per the correct grammar but of course, something their broad-chested parents would fail to notice)  when actually the teacher had made them stand outside the class. 😐
You cannot deny the fact that Modi, Sonia, Priyanka or Ramdev are, ultimately, to your satisfaction or dissatisfaction (they care a damn, if you’d mind knowing 😛 ) and to the envy of your frustrated jealous mind, extremely successful people. People who rose from being ordinary to becoming more than extraordinary. Will as you may, you still cannot deny that.
Yet, there is no dearth of people who will always be on the lookout for shaming tactics, be it calling Modi a chaiwala, Sonia, a bar attendant or Ramdev, a haajme wala. There are people who are loving to dig out the forgotten, dumped in the cartons of history kind of once in an exasperated wild blue moon maybe or maybe not kind of a suicidal thought by some now-famous actress (tweets by Jajoo about Priyanka Chopra are merely a disgusting example) just because it feels so good to want to depress now happily successful people because once they were so low, they had to look up to everyone.
Yet, these shamers forget that these very people rose from their supposedly menial conditions, situations, statuses and became what they are today ~ successful icons in the world. And who are these shamers? Aren’t they the barking dogs that whine and throw a barking tantrum out of paranoia when they chance upon a huge elephant going its way?
~ Purvi Petal, 8 April ©2016

Don’t Let Demons Destruct Them

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Alternative therapies, Bach flower essences, Balance, Bother, care, Coping with life, death, depression, emotions, Fighting depression, Harmony, Hear them out, Homeopathy, Inner demons, Life, listen, Medical aid, Mental fatigue, mind, Society, suicide, thoughts

When people despair, commit suicide, do drugs, I always think, I wish they could do the other one of drugs, that of the likes of homeopathy. I wish there was a way awareness could be raised about how the Bach flower essences and other alternative medicines alter your innate psyche, it helps you tackle yourself. There was this news of a very young actress commiting suicide due to a deep disturbance of relationships in her life. Apparently. Actually there is more to it than one singular reason. That what is the last straw becomes the ultimate trigger, and is labelled as the reason. The reality is far deeper. The person is trying their best at multiple levels. When they begin either feeling or experiencing failure one after the another at all ends, or the struggle gets overwhelming, people try to find an escape. The last main cause of upset just becomes the exact excuse to escape away, a retreat for the mind is sought by the mind in the form of depression. That could even begin with aggression, so to say, the person first feeling agitated about their state of affairs, but later, tiring out and resigning to it.
Things not to say to someone mentally fatigued are many, but most importantly, the worst is calling them ‘cowards, gutless, incapable, happens, ignore, forget, why don’t you fight it?, you don’t try enough, you don’t want to get out of it, you have victim mentality, you know you are mentally ill’, etc. A brain fag has ensued for them and it is a kind of fatigue that takes over once one has tried too hard everywhere. Even if this has been labelled an illness, the label in itself is detrimental to people accepting it. Straight plain depression appears more acceptable. Also, these people are different from attention seekers as well as those narcissists who act like victims. The latter are basically cruel people, with only time for themselves. They will make you pay in other ways if they find time to hear you at all. The former ones are only more vulnerable people. Somewhere the line between the two blurs too, and that is why the former are banged with remarks the latter deserve to earn.
We must develop our ear to hear the anguish of the ones really needing our attention that one odd time they need us as compared to the times they may have given us. Look around. Maybe there is someone with eyes eager for tears to roll and a mouth hungry to blurt their anguish. You need to recognize the one who appears like something else, or the one who is too silent. Verbosity and silence, both are masks to genuine pain. They have been biting their lip while you have been sharpening your axe of rudeness with, “ugh Come on! Happens, its life. You are too sentimental. Shrug off. Why crib so much? You know, you don’t try enough. You are the perpetual victim because you think like that in your head. Maybe you don’t put as much your heart in your work as much as you put your foot in your mouth?” to hack them off your back.
It is better to hear them out. If you can help with empathetic words, fine, else, silent listening is good enough. If you can suggest remedies, worth the effort, though, it is difficult to make people develop faith in something other than quack or fake. But I try. I like to try suggesting homeo or Bach options, music and meditation recommendations, and some chanting to the fractured hearts. All in all, you know, even if you consider all this exercise only equivalent to a placebo, in effectuality, it is slipping time of hope in their hands which have been till then full of despair. Bitter blunt truths maybe good, but sometimes lullabies and fairytales are read just to please ourselves with the thought that demons can after all be slayed and there can be happy endings. So rather than let people commit suicide for feeling incapable due to inability to handle harsh reality or opt for weed as an escape, it is much better to help them try Homeopathy and Bach flower essences to help them deal their issues with a reasonable mind.
I am a workaholic and I don’t ever know where to put a stop. To add to that, I am a multi-tasker who prides in being a perfectionist and intend to give equal and dedicated attention to each task in hand, at hand. I might just get killed with over-exhaustion but I will go on working endlessly, even when it gets far beyond my physical endurance. Any other idea in between the ideas floating in my mind, at the time of creation, can crash my world. Why? Because I am too deeply engrossed and completely involved in my work, for that point, whatever it is, it becomes my passion. Getting out of that reverie, that mind phase becomes difficult for me, I just feel the need to go on even beyond breaking point, till the point of completion. Bach essences help me manage this. Even today, I was so driven with a decor project that I went overboard in draining myself. Bach helped me settle my mind and regain enough strength that I could at least tell myself no more! and lie down on the bed. It broke the control of that hypnotic thought of the project and made me consider myself instead. If this is how, in small measures, we can draw our own breaks and escalators where required, then the world will become a much much better place, with less of its arrogant sadness, fuelled with rage.
My 2 cents.

Book Review: Tales From Valleyview Cemetery

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anecdotes, bleak, cemetery, experiences, fear, ghosts, horror, macabre, memories, mystery, Short stories

3.5 st⭐rs out of 5 st⭐rs
Bleak but not bizarre, deadpan macabre. I guess, it is meant more for the first timers and early readers of creepy chillers. That is how Tales From Valleyview Cemetery is like.

  by John Brhel (Goodreads Author), Joseph Sullivan, Chad Wehrle (Illustrator)
I read it, liked it in parts, but you hardly can enjoy ghost stuff if it is too morbidly real and maybe even predictable. It is not a bad pick, but not exactly a turn on for shivers.
Like anecdotes, incidences, accidents, reported and compiled. Eerie yes, sometimes even sinister. Ghostly that leaves you aghast because it could be a real revelation of haunting and haunted, is its level of authentic feel, that I can guarantee.
Try it on a night when you feel like having a date with the shady shadowy present of those who made themselves past tenses, maybe it won’t leave you scared but spooked, yeah.
Not for the hardcore paranormal fans, it’s comparatively a light read for them. It could have been scarier.
I got a reviewer’s copy from the owner and I thank them for their patience as I have been extremely caught up with some terrible circumstances at home.

#GR Review