Writing a novel

After retirement I had started writing my blogs but I had never written a novel. I had written seven books ( the last is in the printing stage) but never a novel non fiction or fiction. So I decided to try my hand at a novel and because it would be easier , I started with fiction. The book is now about half done but let me tell you it has been one big pain.

I did not start with an outline or a fixed idea in my mind. I just started writing the first chapter and the others flowed from it. Soon the structure of the novel was more or less established though I was adding new chapters as I went along. The problem soon became that my mind was always revolving around the novel. I would be sitting on the dining table with my wife desperatley trying to make conversation but I would be elsewhere with the characters in my novel. I would be eavesdropping on conversations hoping to replicate the tones and contents of these voices. But by far the hardest thing was writing the love scenes. I must have started that chapter a dozen times but was never able to get it right. I even thought of reading the " Fifty Shades of Grey" for inspiration but to no avail. I reproduce below part of the opening chapter -- no not the unfinished love chapter, you should be so lucky- and hope that by the end of the year I will have completed my magnum opus.

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The plan

The two old men sat comfortably sipping their cups of tea. Amal and Raj were old friends. But little did they realize that their idle musings that day would help topple the government in a neighboring country.

Amal was now a distinguished looking 65. His luxurious beard now almost all white with a few streaks of grey made him look like a junior Santa Claus. His twinkling eyes added to the illusion. He had a spritely gait and he walked with care that the formally obese normally adapt. He had shed his middle age potbelly but his clothes still draped loosely on him. He was too lazy to go for a new wardrobe despite his daughters nagging. “I am too old”, he would say laughingly, “ to become a clothes horse.”

His companion was, by contrast, impeccably dressed. Raj was you touching 70 but his wiry frame and close-cropped hair, streaked generously with grey, made him look closer to 60. He wore gold-rimmed eye glasses which accentuated his intellectual appearance. But behind his mild exterior lay one of the sharpest minds in the country. He had been a very successful cabinet secretary and for his work the PM had offers him a state governorship on his retirement. But now he was really retired and spent his days doing crosswords and chatting with friends. His eyes still twinkled behind the golden-rimmed glasses he wore but there was still  a wariness in them. He seemed disinterested in day-to-day life, a feeling that had intensified after the death of his daughter. He took great delight in talking about his grandson as if to compensate for his loss and it took a little effort to get him to talk about his days as the cabinet secretary and governor of a border state. But if you could get him to talk about those days in power, there were a many a tale he could tell. 

Amal occupied a special place in his heart after his daughter’s suicide some two years ago. He had yet to recover from the shock but he deeply appreciated the fact that Amal had come every single day to sit by his side and hold his hand. Amal would just sit by him without saying a word but his very presence spoke volumes.

Amal and Raj had become fast friends from the time Amal had been pitchforked into the prestigious job of the director of the national oil company. He was new to the bureaucracy and the fact that he had been selected over the minister’s preferred candidate made him a marked man. His every decision was watched with a hawk's eye just waiting for any missteps. It was Raj who had guided him during the early days and, with his bureaucratic experience and expertise, saving him from many a blunder. He had repaid Raj’s help when Raj got into some hot water for his alleged participation in a cement diversion scam some years later. He organized his defense and  also managed to mobilize his friends in the media. The charges against Raj were soon dropped but these events had brought them  even closer.

They would often discuss the sorry state of affairs in the country. And when Amal’s indignation would rise as would his voice - a throwback to his early days as a university lecturer, Raj would gently chide him and bring him back to earth. They made an interesting pair- Amal with his incandescent brilliance and Raj with his down to earth pragmatism, one so deeply involved in current affairs with a deeply analytical mind and the other with an encyclopedic knowledge of public life in the country.

“So what do we know now? “ asked Amal of his friend.

“ Well we know that the prime minister is surrounded by scoundrels and that a few of them are not above selling the country out to the highest bidder. One of these so-called lobbyists has been killed in suspicious circumstances and he had a suitcase filled with state secrets. He was in touch with his Pakistani masters to exchange them for a Swiss bank account when he was caught by our RAW. We know there is a mole in RAW to whom we have been feeding wrong information to ISI. With this information we have been slowly rounding up various cells in the country that could cause mischief without ISI realizing it. We know that ISI is up to some mischief. We think that  ISI is planning an attack on Bombay hotels in the month of October but we don’t know where or precisely when or with how big a team. Our mole does not know these details but may be we can pry them out of his masters. The issue is how do we use this to land a more vicious blow to counter these constant, continuos pinpricks and make ISI pay a greater penalty for their interference in our country. ........."