The First Step - How it all started?

The story traces back to 28th September, 2008. It was Sunday, I had plans to go out and enjoy the only day of 'aaram' my alma-mater bestowed upon me. Imposing great discipline on my lazy bones, I got up early in the morning to execute my excursion plan lucidly and was about to leave when my Mom and sister called me to inform, "Harsh, don't go out! There has been a bomb blast in Mehrauli. It's not safe."

I was in rage. My wings which were ready to fly on a pleasant September Sunday were butchered by the sudden act of terrorism. I sat down in front of my computer, my anger instigated my mind to construct something destructive. The rage poured down through my fingers on the keyboard. I planned of writing a sarcastic plus funny short-story which struck a chord with the hot-topic of the day - 'How terrorism affects the life of a common guy who has to go on his first date?'

The next seven hours were the most amazing moments of my life. I started with just an initial thought of ridiculing terrorism in some way or other and despite my empty stomach, I wrote and wrote. Thoughts came down automatically, the short-story turned into a short-novel and the story took another turn; I didn't realize that how the hot-topic turned cold as some thoughts struck my mind and got embedded in the story with my imagination running wild.

After writing for seven hours in one go, I finished five chapters - small chapters - of two-three pages each. I paused - to empty and then fill my bowel - and I was mesmerized with myself. I called the novel 'Kismat Disconnection'; I don't know why or how I got that name in my mind. I didn't realize how the Sunday morning dawn turned into dusk.

I planned to continue the story for about 12-13 chapters and give a hilarious ending involving the terrorist attack in some funny way. But, the story had its own course to follow. I sent the link of the blog to all my friends and batchmates on the Sunday night itself and the next Monday morning became the best morning of my life. The next day, my friends gave me spectacularly encouraging feedback - story had a great kick-off; witty at places; when are you going to upload the next chapter? etc - I could just mutter to myself - 'Wow!'

The next two days, the visitor counter shot from zero to 300 and I could not do anything other than getting amazed at the magnificent response. It was the best day in my writing career. The response helped me steer all throughout and what was initially to be a short-story turned into a full fledged 28,000 words short-novel with 33 chapters in it. Over the month, the visitor counter boomed with over 4000 visitors; until I removed the novel from blog and sent it for publishing.

P.S. Click HERE to go to the next part of the story - Tryst with Passion.