No matter what happens we should stand for our dreams: Jyotirmoy Mazumdar

Written for Isahitya. You may check out the interview here

Jyotirmoy Mazumdar is the new addition to the Indian book world. He is all of nineteen but has achieved a lot in his life. His debut novel, ‘Did She Love Me?’ hit the stores in the beginning of this month. He is presently a first year student of B.Tech in Computer Science from SRM University, Delhi. He is basically from Guwahati and is blessed with a writer Mom. I guess the writing skills come from his genes. According to him he is a writer by accident. Budding authors do have a new inspiration.

Jyotirmoy, in a candid talk with Harshita Srivastava talks about his book, the obstacles he had to go through while getting his book published and life apart from writing.

Qus: How does it feel to hold your book in hand?

Jyotirmoy : Well, my release was delayed by a long time, that made the anticipation a bit weak but when I held the book in my hand it was something I can’t describe. I was feeling happy in the same time I was a bit nostalgic and emotional. I wished if my parents would have been with me, but overall it felt very good to hold my first book in my hand.

Qus: How did writing come into existence in your life?

Jyotirmoy : My mom is a writer but I won’t relate that it helped me become a writer, I am a writer by accident, there were some incidents in my life which made me compose poems and songs. But then those poems and songs weren’t enough to express my feelings, the book came out

Qus: Being a debut author, what hardships you had to face while writing as well as getting your book published?

Jyotirmoy : Being a debut author, the hardest thing is getting a good publisher and a good deal which you deserve for your book. There are many publishing houses but not every house entertains new authors easily. Writing a book is the easy part I suppose over to getting it out in the market. I was rejected a few times but I waited and finally got a couple of offers for myself and I hope I got the best one.

Ques : Tell us something about your book.

Jyotirmoy : My book is basically a story of a boy named Jayrish, and how his life unfolds with hurdles and wrong decisions when he falls in love. Love makes him do all the things he never thought he could do, be it fighting or revolting with his parents or going to unknown place for his love. The way he leaves his dreams and selflessly loves his girl that is remarkable.

Qus: In your book, you've shown the protagonist to be an epitome of selfless love. Do you think people like him actually exist in today's times?

Jyotirmoy : I wouldn't have got the story if people like him were imaginary. Yes people like Jayrish exist in this world, they are hard to find but when you find them you know how good this world can be.

Qus: How did you come up with the title of the book?

Jyotirmoy : The initial title of the book was "She Played Around" but that title kind of revealed the total story of the book. When I gave a thought to it, this title came to my mind as even when the story ends Jayrish is not sure if she really loved him or was it just an illusion from her side.

Qus: Is there any message you would like to give through your novel?

Jyotirmoy : Yes, there is a message I would like to give through my novel, no matter what happens we should stand for our dreams and love at the same time, wrong things happen but that's when we learn. No one and nothing is perfect, so we should learn to accept the people and live our life with the faults. One more thing I would like to say is that we should never disrespect our parents.

Qus: Is there any particular age group you are targeting?

Jyotirmoy: Not really, but the teenage would like the book more than the elders.

Qus: Tell us something about yourself.

Jyotirmoy : I don't really like speaking about myself but if I have to speak, I would say I am just a normal guy with some big dreams, an average student now. I like to write when I find time. I did my schooling from Happy Child High School, Guwahati, till my 10th and then I shifted to Delhi, now I am a first year engineering student from SRM University with Computer science.

Qus: What are your future plans? Do you plan to take up writing on full time basis?

Jyotirmoy : In India, we can't totally depend on a full time writing career until you are someone like Chetan Bhagat who sells over 15 million copies per book. I will keep writing till the end but a career as writing is not clearly in my eyes.

Qus: What kind of reviews have you got for your book till now?

Jyotirmoy : I have got positive reviews till now. Not a single negative review. I did not expect this but I am happy to see that people are liking my work. I am looking forward to more reviews from the readers, because it is the masses who decide if a book is good or not.

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यादें

वो बारिश की बूँदें आज भी कुछ याद दिला जाती हैं 

वो ठंडी हवाओं में साथ  घूमना

वो चाट के ठेले पर गोल  गप्पे  खाना 

वो बरसात में स्कूटी तेज़  तेज़  चलाना 

वो क्लास  में टिफिन खाना
वो भूगोल शास्त्र की क्लास  से भाग  जाना 

वो पानी पीने के बहाने पूरे स्कूल  के चक्कर काटना 

वो मिल बाँट के खाना 

वो कैंटीन के बाहर खड़े हो कर लड़ना 

वो बास्केटबाल  के लिए झगड़ना 

हर लम्हा हर पल  बस  मस्ती कर 

वो खट्टी मीठी यादें आज  भी आँखों में आंसू दे जाती हैं       

                                                   -हर्षिता श्रीवास्तव 

Boom of budding authors in Present times

I am already in love with this space.It's a great platform to get exposure to one's writing skills and venting out one's feelings. As a person who enjoys writing since childhood, I feel there has been a drastic change in the opinion of public towards writers. Many people plunged into this field like today but only a few got to the apex. But today with the changing scenario we have seen a boom in the count of youth Indian writers. Thanks to Chetan Bhagat and of course recession wherein after losing their jobs many people turned to writing for livelihood.
Just like the two faces of coin, writing has brought in a lot of competition   in the market as well. There is a horde of authors, good and bad. Exploitation is as always present here. Often the publishers do not give due respect to the authors, the standard royalty rate of 8-10% has come down to 5%. I have even heard about publishers not responding properly to the authors about the sales figures.The established publishing houses are not ready to give chance to the budding authors while the ones that give chance do not even posses editors, leave alone good editors. the rough manuscript is published as it as. Even the editors are unable to correct the grammatical errors. In a recent book that I read, the single change that the publishing house brought in the manuscript was changing 'hair' to 'hairs'. Amazingly we always studied it as 'hair' in lower classes but then we can't do anything as the author is already indebted to the publisher for getting his book in the print with no capital investment.
If you are a debut author and your work isn't of romantic genre, you might as well become a rolling stone because the expectation from a young Indian author is a love story or another campus life. They have a good reason for you that romance sells anyway but for a debut author  something different may create losses for the house also. They can't take a chance. While a recent interaction with another youth author, I was told that a publisher had once said to her that love,sex,fun and a fresh story line is that sells the most.

These are just a few instances. And of course we can't forget that we all have to be grateful to them as they are the ones providing us bread and butter, the fame we needed and unique identity. All we need is a little more value to our work and little effort from everybody's side to bring out the best for the nation.

Acknowledgement

There are a few things that have been piling up but the lazy me never feels like doing anything. So the past fortnight has been a little hectic. The first eight days went in PUT(Pre University Test) so it basically means I must be studying but the lazy person I am, I never give my cent percent to anything so the conclusion is that the first eight days went in wasting my days, the left out days went in taking rest after all I had just completed with my exams. Sometimes I feel i am such a hopeless and worthless creature in this world, I have nothing to do,all I can do is waste my time. I wish one day I could get over my laziness. So a quick update of the past fortnight.
You guys must be remembering about the International poetry competition in which I had taken part last month. I became a one star finalist in the same. It is an honor to be a part of the finalists where so many people from all over the globe participated. All I feel is that either my stars were good when the judges were going through my poem or the judge was in a good mood. Thank you everybody and every person who has been encouraging me in my stupid endeavors. I didn't tell about this to Mum and Dad as I felt it wasn't that great an achievement even though I updated it as my status and Dad being a rare visitor at FB didn't go through it. And then the other day some family friends called up at home to congratulate Mum and she didn't even know what they all were talking about. She immediately asked my sis to log in facebook so that she could have a look at her daughter's achievements which her daughter thought to be irrelevant. She called me up congratulating me for the same and making her brainless daughter realize that it is something to be rejoiced about. I think my parents already think that their daughter has lost her gray matter after she left home for Greater Noida to pursue engineering. And now that so many people have congratulated me I think I should inform you all too about this. You may check out the poem here and the Contest Result Page where my name stands along with the other contestants :)
Another accomplishment is getting the Versatile Blogger Award for Dreams v/s Reality by Dhruv Solanki. Dhruv is an engineering student at NIT, Raipur who writes lovely poetry in Hindi and English. He describes thoughts beautifully. There is lot to learn from him.Thank you Dhruv for the honour and the lazy me doesn't want to write again so you may check out this space for more info as I have already received the same title for my other blog:)
Every reader has played a great part in making this blog and Relationship Vows a readable space. Thank you dears for your support and keep tolerating me in future too. A person who has been supporting me blindly and every step I take is Mr. Prasoon Verma(Vaanbhatt). Thank you Uncle for reading my write ups and motivating me in every way. You have been a fatherly guidance to me here.
And yes today is my birthday. I turn 21 today :) see how shamelessly I laugh here. I don't even realize that I haven't achieve anything till date, all I did is wasted 21 years of my life. I guess I'll be doing the same in the coming future too. So for now it's time to celebrate my day, Happy Birthday To Me:) We can adjust with the failures later, isn't it?