January 2022: A dark monstrous twin-headed apparition – Apophis – feverishly races past the expanse of the Milky Way galaxy and bolts to the edge of the solar system. Recklessly accelerating, the sinister rock-dyad enters the gravitational keyhole of the blue planet and continues its resolute inebriated journey – to soon arrive with an apocalyptic impact on Earth.
Who is the last person you hugged?
The last person is the first person I hug everyday… my beautiful six-year-old daughter Sophie and post that my dog.
What are you reading now?
I find it hard to read sequentially, therefore I read in parallel several books on my Kindle and physical books, at present they include:
The Book of Disquiet – Fernando Pessoa (I am always reading this book, again and again).
The Celestine Prophecy – James Redfield - once again.
Latitudes of Longing – Shubhangi Swarup (Just absolutely love it)
Who fears death? – Nnedi Okarafor
How do you come up with the titles to your books?
That is one of the hardest parts of writing a book (at least for me). It never comes easy, so one has to brainstorm several options and then intuitively short list a few. In the case of my present book: APOPHIS, I intuitively chose this title from the shortlisted few.
But, it was only many months later, that I realized that it was also an Anagram:
APOPHIS = (6-letter ANAGRAM) = SOPHIA
APOPHIS: Greek word for the Egyptian God of Chaos
SOPHIA : Greek word for wisdom
And I was reminded of the ancient saying:
‘It is only on the seeds of chaos that a new-found wisdom can be realized.’
Sophia or Sophie is also the name of my daughter. It was she, who in a prescient moment had quoted Socrates (when she was 18 months old, in 2015) and the idea of the book was born and completed 5 years later in 2020.
Share your dream cast for your book.
Yikes! I would imagine that like other books where children are the primary protagonists. I would suggest a world-wide search for the 5 children (nine years old) and insist that no white-washing be done of ANY character.
Especially, since the book has characters from several cultural diaspora and racial backgrounds.
Let the diversity across the planet shine!
How long did it take you to write this book?
5 years – that is the short answer.
52 years – that is the long answer and probably the appropriate one.
I cannot imagine, that I could have written such a book – immersed in a dark wisdom – without the multiplicity of experiences, travels, travails, relationships, deaths, teachings, learnings, readings, loves as well as the many years of despair - that one has experienced across my 52 years on this planet.
~Try an Excerpt!~The Barred Spiral Milky Way Galaxy
At the Edge of the Solar System
January 17, 2022 (Earth Time)
A dark monstrous apparition, slingshot from across another realm, camouflaged in a jagged, charcoal black rock, adroitly surfed the gravitational waves of the universe. Feverishly racing past the expanse of the Milky Way galaxy, it bolted to the edge of the solar system and arrived from above the plane of the ecliptic – gyrating closer to the sun.
The dark fiend continued its charge forward, cutting across the path of Venus – nearly crashing onto it, before it deftly decelerated and reached a stable orbit in a retrograde rotation around the pale-yellow planet. This tenacious temporary satellite immediately scrambled to steal a fragment of the protesting planet’s enormous momentum. Catapulted along the plain of the ecliptic, recklessly accelerating at an impossible speed – it shattered, splitting into two.
The newly formed rock dyad – a small black moon orbiting a sphere of death – pulled free from Venus. It continued its inebriated journey, salivating at the opportunity to rain a resolute chaos upon an orphic azure-blue bubble still 40 million kilometers away.
Unbeknownst to the alien rock dyad, a faint sliver of gold orbited nearby. The 7.5-meter-tall and 3.2-meter wide Sentinel Space Telescope clothed in a gold foil, with a giant heat-reflector shield strung along its back; cooled to 40 degrees Kelvin by a two stage, closed cycle Stirling cryocooler. Its 0.51-meter aluminum mirror, dutifully scanned any and all Inner Earth Objects larger than 90 meters in diameter that ever dared to fly across its 200-degree angle of regard.
The Sentinel Observatory, alarmed by the presence of the ghostly twin-headed monster, recorded the black rock dyad’s trajectory, shape, size, mass, and rotational dynamics, before it urgently sent a coded message to its home base in southern Japan.
Savinder Raj Anand is an architect and has been teaching Architecture & Design at various Universities in India for more than 12 years. A long-distance runner with a wanderlust to explore the world, and write stories that traverse across diverse cultures. He lives in Goa with his daughter, a dog, and two cats.
Inspired by his then 18-month-old daughter – when she quoted Socrates – while they together sat in a children’s bookstore in Bangalore (LIGHTROOM) in early January of 2015, he has completed this – his first book – as she turns 7 years old.
Thank you so much for taking time to bring to our attention another great read. I appreciate it and thank you also for the giveaway.
ReplyDeleteInteresting interview especially about the title.
ReplyDeleteRaj Anand is a new author to me, but I will certainly give his books a read.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a wonderful book I'll enjoy reading!
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