SUJATA SABNIS | Author Interview

An avid and frequent traveller, a good listener, a quiet observer, a certified drama queen. But also happy-go-lucky and cheerful who loves a giggle and gossip.

I laugh easily and I cry easily. Contradictory you think? That’s me, forever trying to walk a path less trodden.

In a fit of temper, I took out my IIMC certificate in journalism, marched to the Pune Indian Express office, barged in the Editor Mr Prakash Kardaley’s office and demanded a job as a journalist. No one was more stunned than me when he said ok, let’s see how you write!

And I was hired as a feature writer for Citizen Magazine. What followed was any number of feature articles and interviews on all things Pune and in which I discovered I love writing.

It’s pretty amazing when you finally find your passion and your path and I discovered that in my years as a journalist.

But while writing feature articles for “IE”, I discovered I was good at thriller stories, I was able to make them gripping and pacy.

Still, writing 1000 words article was way different from a full novel right? And then one day I thought of this very cool story plot – a pretty chilling, gripping psychological murder mystery. But would I be able to write it out well? It was a scary thought indeed.

And yet, that is the thing with these story ideas, once they come to you, they start overpowering you, egging you on, making you restive till you get down and do something about them.

So one fine day, with tonnes of self-doubts, I took the name of Ganesha and took the plunge. And so slowly, bit by bit, over the period of one year, my first novel “Silent whispers” got written.

But later on, too, a knowledge of psychology does help in better understanding of human nature and vagaries of life. It may give you additional empathy for your characters which does help in adding depth to them.

But I can’t claim that I chose this topic – rather it chose me via this wonderful, beautiful story that struck me one fine day.

I can’t tell you how terrified I was when I started writing it – this would be the first time I was writing a love story, my earlier two being thrillers.

Would I be able to do justice to it?

But as I started writing it, something took over, maybe the characters themselves. And they just pulled me along with them, laughing, feeling, plotting, crying, loving.

Don’t want to sound stupid, but I LOVE my characters and I love the kind of love they share.

It was imperative that my novel should transport my reader in that era and make it come alive for them. That would be possible only if I could make the novel as detailed as possible.

I had to get not just the fashion, the food, the lifestyle right but also the attitude, the ideas, the perspectives of those times.

Moreover, my novel dealt with not just Kings and Queens but also the life of the common people.

All this involved a terrific amount of research, reading any number of tomes, making frequent trips to Agra, poring through the archives of The Archaeological Society.  It took me a year to finish this research.

Another concern was that the detailing should not slow the pace of the novel so of equal importance was to know what should be left out.

And then, of course, there were some delightfully salacious bits of information I came across in my research which I would have LOVED to have included but prudence demanded I should leave out.

I am crazy about dogs and my absolute pet is my golden retriever Sammy. I also love cooking, dish up all kinds of international cuisines and according to my family and friends I am very good. So see I am modest too.

And now I am obsessed with a fantasy love story – exciting but scary as hell as I have never written a fantasy story before.

If you enjoyed reading Songs of Stone – or even if you didn’t – do email me your thoughts at sujatasabnis@hotmail.com

Thank you Sankalpita for the love you have given my novel.