I always wanted to be a cricketer. I still do. Every year when we graduated to the next standard, each teacher would graciously devote her first class in asking each student his/her name and what he/she wanted to become. And each time my turn came, I gleefully stood up and shouted, “Ma’am, Tushar Raheja; I want to become a cricketer.”

But Mr Fate, to borrow my own character, had a strange journey planned for me. He has now reduced me to a struggling writer with a coveted engineering degree in my hand. And I still want to become a cricketer. I am sorry to start on such a meandering note. This article must focus on my writing, my book and me; but then focus is one thing my mind is still trying to know the ropes of. And so I must ramble on, like I did in my book and have done in my life, and yet try to draw some conclusions from the mess.

The mess which concerns us here is my fickle mind which has been fascinated by so many different things. My parents, who earlier were excited at this property of my mind, gradually became sceptical as I just could not decide what I wanted to become. I would see a Tendulkar straight drive and know for sure that I wanted to be on the cricket field all my life, I would be awed by Becker’s volleys and Maradona’s dribbles and foster similar feelings towards their sports. I would watch a Hrishikesh Mukherjee film and be convinced that I had to be a film director, or hear Bryan Adams and pick up the guitar trying to imitate him. I would also be smitten by the beauty in the subtlety of mathematical theorems and laws of physics and then dream of inventing something. I still do.

But as years rolled on, I had to choose one of them as my career and the most obvious choice for a middle class child like me was a career in Engineering. Engineering I studied, but could not resist the temptations of my other dreams. Hence, I was always accused of being wayward, directionless - which led me to think, was that really the case? Were my “wayward” fascinations thwarting my growth? Is it unnatural to be attracted to sports, arts and science at the same time? Does the mind allow only one of them in? It took me years to discover the answer. The answer provides a clue to explain the anomaly of a person like me writing a novel.

Cricket. My first and foremost fascination. As I played more and more, watched Tendulkar, Lara and Warne with a keener eye; I realized cricket was all about one thing – Flow. It was all about timing, the instant when the bat met the ball, the instant when the ball left the hand. As if it is poetry in motion. No wonder the players are said to be on song, when on top of their games. The game as a whole fascinated me too but what fascinated me most was the poetry in the styles of these cricketers.

I started playing the guitar. Slowly I started understanding the notes of each song. I started composing my own songs, simple songs. I wondered how effortlessly one note led to another to another. I really did not need a guitar to compose songs. A monsoon shower was enough to suggest the right note to me, and I just needed to follow my mood, go with the flow. I realized songs were all about flow, just as Tendulkar’s straight drives were.

I took up engineering. And I found out only then how vastly different it was from science. I loved science – Maths and Physics, but I just could not make myself like engineering. Engineering was more of method and less of an art. Maths was all art. How one equation led to another to another! The whole proof of a theorem was all about flow. A theorem could be proved in many ways – long and short, but the proof is beautiful only when it had something poetic about it. I discovered that Maths could explain so many philosophies, that even music was all about Maths – perfectly distanced notes.

These three remained my passions for years, there were others too, but these three consumed most of my time. And one day I realized that in some strange way they were not different from each other. They were all inter-related. A Lara drive, forgive me for being abstract, could be imagined as a silken note from a violin, a line of poetry, or a beautiful equation. Cricket, music and maths were all about one thing – Flow. To be generic sports, arts and science are all the same. They are all about flow. They are about imagination and heart too but here I’d stick to their most important similarity – Flow.

What is flow? It is as difficult to define as it is to define time. In my mind it paints the picture of a simple mathematical curve which could describe a song, a dance, a river, an essay or a glide of a bird.

So now when I sit back, relax and think about this whole restless life I have had, “order starts appearing in this randomness”, to borrow a line from the beautiful “Chaos Theory” of mathematics. I have not been that restless after all. All my endeavours have been in some sort of way similar, they have all helped me discover the creative side in me and help me escape.

And writing a novel has just been an extension to my expression. It has only helped my creative growth. Though I may not have written much earlier while I was lost in other fascinations, seeds were definitely being sown towards this end. One art leads to another to another and so I came to write. This may lead me to make films but till then I’ll write - in my own style, which can not be literary but will be imaginative, which may not be cherished by critics but will be all about flow.

Now, I know it’s never a good thing being the jack of all trades. But I guess an artistic mind will always be naughty. It can not help but be smitten by the beauty of various arts. One art will lead to another to another. It is a mistaken notion that people are only now breaking out of conventional careers to write, or play music; how can any one forget the great doctor – Arthur Conan Doyle? Or forget the diversity of Da Vinci? And most of the other writers also came out of their daily jobs due to intellectual dissatisfaction. And this trend will go on. An artistic mind will always pause to observe the flight of a bird, flow of a stream or the follow - through of Shane Warne; and a chord would be struck; and thus a new piece of art will be born.

It has been a beautiful experience writing my novel. And even more beautiful is the feeling that now, through the characters in the world of my books, I can play cricket for India, can invent a formula, can even meet Sherlock Holmes. I can now dream and escape.

Swami and friends:
My all time favourite. Work of a genius. No book describes childhood better – the emotions, adventures, the fears – everything is there. Add to that beautiful Maugudi and you get a masterpiece.

Sherlock Holmes:
The strongest character ever in Fiction. His observations, philosophies, knowledge gives you an idea of what a genius Arthur Conan Doyle himself was.

Books by P. G. Wodehouse:
You may pick any of the 96 written by the genius. All of them will enthral you, have you in splits and you’ll be forced to reread all of them to laugh once again and wonder at the beauty and ingenuity of the language. There will never be another Wodehouse. Not in this century, not in centuries to follow.

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Designed by Subhadip Mukherjee