Rendezvous with Heema Shirvaikar and Saravana Kumar Murugan

Today, we have Heema Shirvaikar and Saravana Kumar Murugan, the two contributors of UYE-2 who are here tell us about their stories.

'Hickey' by the Mumbai gal, Heema Shirvaikar and '120 Minutes' by Saravana Kumara Murugan, a software engineer find a place for themselves in the popular short story series, Uff Ye Emotions

"Hickey is a story replete with the reminisces and reflections of womanhood wronged with the overwhelming societal moulds and restrictions that we take upon our ownselves.

We often mistake violence with something loud and huge. Hickey is a story that taps into the marks left behind by the soundless, suffocated and unseen assaults wrapped in silk sarees and outdazzled by elaborate jewellery," Heema tells us.

I move on to ask them the question that I've been asking the other participants as well.

"What inspired you to write this story?"

Heema: My story "Hickey" isn't one of the usual romantic stories about love and relationships but instead is the journey of a woman, who is a mute spectator to the stories of those around her. 

I felt that there was a need for people to see beyond love stories - because reality isn't always what we read in the books. Reality can sometimes, be much darker than our idea of it.
Thus was born the idea of "Hickey" - that deals with the flipside of love that novels like Mills and Boons with their perfect love stories do not include. Love isn’t always perfect and relationships are much more complex than one can imagine.

Sometimes, there are a lot of things that people around us misunderstand as love and we, like the protagonist of this story are mere passive observers and feel helpless about it.
How often does it happen that we feel like helping people but we discourage ourselves thinking that it is none of our business!

But it is this discouragement that is driving us farther away from each other, making us almost immune to the thousands of crimes and stories of violence that are around us, making us more and more emotionless towards the sufferings of others. In this scenario, it is important that stories like ‘Hickey’ and books like ‘Uff Ye Emotions’ should invoke those emotions back in people, giving them a break from their daily life where they ignore the things that are happening around them and are only concerned with themselves.

"Hickey" is not only about love and inter-personal relationships, but about the relationship we share with ourselves and with the society at large.

In the light of all the violence that has been happening in this country, especially towards women, this story was inspired by the need to have more stories dealing with social issues. Being a law student who aspires to bring about a change in the state of the weaker sections of the society including women, I felt that my story needed to have a social theme to it, dealing with the other, darker shades of emotions regarding love and relationships that we often don’t disclose and keep buried within ourselves.

This story was inspired by the need of the society that we become sensitive towards each other and help each other than staying selfishly concerned only about ourselves. The fact that none of the passersby moved to help a severely wounded Nirbhaya when she was mercilessly raped and thrown out of the bus questions our sensitivity towards each others’ pain. We need to bring some emotions back in ourselves, and for that, I felt that we do occasionally need a little different story like "Hickey" to jolt our emotions back.

About Heema:

20 year old Heema Shirvaikar is currently a second year law student at Symbiosis Law School, Pune. Her articles, stories and poems have been published in various magazines and online platforms. She maintains her own blog at http://snowontherocks.blogspot.in/.

Follow her on her Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/HeemaShirvaikar.page

Moving onto Saravana who runs a blog by the name 'Few Miles' under the pen name 'Someone is Special', I asked him a little about his story.

We struggle to express our love to our loved ones. At times, we fail to do at the right moment. But when we face a tough situation, we win with flying colors. “120 Minutes” is a story of love, promise and faith. Dedication of the protagonists towards love and, the will to keep his promise intact form the backdrop of this story. 

What inspired you to write this story?

The smile on my wife’s face. Yes, that’s pretty much the reason to write this story. It was a Monday evening. The weather was terribly bad, and our city was listed under red zone. My colleagues and I left to home from office, as we expected the storm to clean the city, and whatever happened in those one hundred and twenty minutes is what you will read in the story “120 Minutes”.

Doesn't that bring a smile on your face and all you want is a copy of UYE-2 :)

About Saravana:

Saravana Kumar Murugan is a senior software engineer by profession, a romantic writer by passion and a photographer by choice. Born to a middle class family living under the hot sun of Chennai, at 26, he aspires to become an author. He is known for his romantic short stories and meaningful poems. Apart from writing, he loves capturing life through his lens, giving life to a paper with his pencil, and satisfies his own stomach with his cooking. He is currently working on a novel called, ‘Love of an Anonymous Soul’, which he is hoping to complete before the end of this year. He writes a blog called ‘Few Miles’ under a pen name, ‘Someone is Special’, and you can get in touch with him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/iamsarav.page

After talking to such creative word weavers, I just can't wait for the book to release.

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