About The Author
Bhavini K. Desai is the author of the debut political romance ‘The City of Pillars,’ the first novel in
The Heaven Series. She is a media professional who physically lives in Mumbai and mentally
inhabits varied worlds — depending on which book she is reading. Or writing. You can find her on
her Instagram, sharing her day on stories, posting sneak-peeks about her next book, and making
the world a little more musical with her 90s Bollywood and Allman Brown.
Follow her on Instagram at authorbhavini
Interview
Q) Tell us about the idea behind the book?
It was my first year in Mass Media. And as is wont for any first-year starry-eyed kid anywhere in the world, I too was on a club-joining spree. One of those clubs, an editorial club, was running a short story writing contest. I was a part of setting it up, and because members are the first scapegoats, I was asked to submit a short story. The best ones would be published in an anthology.
On a rainy August evening in 2013, I finished my short story. It was called Rescuing Heaven. But it exceeded the word limit of 3000 by a hundred or so. Try as I might, it just wouldn’t sound as good when I cut sentences or replaced phrases. So I called my Editorial Head and requested her to consider me. Members were known to get special treatment, and there usually was a buffer for the word limit too. She refused.
So I spent that night frantically editing. Cutting, replacing, removing. Somehow I managed to slip under the word limit. But the final read didn’t give me the feels anymore. So I didn’t submit it. They refused to take the version I wanted to send. And I refused to submit a version that forget readers, didn’t appeal to me first.
That’s how I was left with a 3000+ words short story, which would later expand into a novel named The City of Pillars. That short story became the Prologue of this book, born out of the idea that great rescues are not of cities and countries. One man can seldom save an entire people. But even if he saved one person, it’s a good start.
A young soldier and a teenage orphan girl in the this short story grew up to become a solid political leader and a fierce writer. They grew up to be Atharva Singh Kaul and Iram Haider. And made me grow in the process too.
Q) How much time did it take in the process of writing?
8 Years.
The full story for The City of Pillars was completed by the end of 2014, but I continued writing the next books and going back to work on this one. It’s taken all these years to keep fleshing out more and more as I grew, and my sensibilities grew. Over time, these characters took over their own stories.
Q) What did the process of writing this book teach you?
Empathy. Empathy in spades. I think that’s the greatest lesson we learn as writers as well as readers. To understand somebody. Even if he/she is wrong or bad or rotten at their core. It’s a blessing as well as a curse in real life.
Also Read: Interview with Ekta Sinha – Author of The Deal in Akmud
Q) What inspired you to write this book?
The miserable state of the world, and the lack of awareness of its people.
I was studying a paper on Political Concepts in college. And as I was learning contemporary issues, flipping through newspapers like my next meal, the wider circle around me didn’t seem to care much. Kashmir, for example, wasn’t on anybody’s radar. For all they knew it was a ‘beautiful but chaotic place.’ Why was that? Who made it so? What was the human angle inside that kaleidoscope?
My first aim was to write something that I would enjoy reading. And since I am a huge (HUGE) romance lover, it was a no-brainer that it would be a love story. The base of that love story was already established in my short story Rescuing Heaven. I just started expanding, researching, and writing about a world (crafted into fiction) so that somebody out there would fall in love with it and want to know more about its realities.
Q) Which is your favourite part from the book?
Ch 10. If you want to become a leader in this place…
It’s a simple enough chapter, a casual tour of Dal Lake and its backwater villages. For Atharva, it is just another day. And yet when Iram joins him and sees Kashmir through his eyes, showing him her perspectives, it becomes a special intersection. I like to read and re-read this chapter for comfort, the start of their romance, as well as to understand more about character psyches. It is also a favourite of mine because it makes a very progressive commentary on leadership. Read it, you will know what I mean.
Q) A book that had an impact on you, which helped you in writing this one?
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.
This series of books (there are 9, and the 10th one is being written) has been one of the greatest influences on my literary life. I don’t know if it helped me write my own books because the genres are completely different. But I believe the ideals of love, leadership, community and family are common points.
Q) Tell us about your plans? Planning a new book?
As of now, I am weeding through an endless list of old Indian songs (50s and 60s), because they are a huge deal in the sequel — the second part of The City of Pillars. It has a working title that I don’t have the heart to announce yet. You can find an excerpt from it at the end of The City of Pillars, and I keep sharing little pieces here and there on my Instagram.
I am through writing it (I was, back in 2016). Currently, I am editing it, and hiding from my beta readers to whom I had promised a draft by September ’22. So Atharva, Iram and Kashmir are still my world.
Q) How your life changed after the book was published?
Not much. In fact, this story has been with me for so long that even after The City of Pillars was published, it didn’t sink in for the longest time. I still don’t introduce myself as an author. It will take some time. Though, I hope it never sinks in. I like to call myself a writer a little too much.
Like Atharva tells Iram, when she asks him why he doesn’t work from the big party headquarters but his old founding house — ‘It doesn’t feel like work, what we are doing here. It feels like life, nothing extraordinary.
Q) What is a literary success for you?
Readers.
Q) A message for all the readers.
If one day you come across The City of Pillars, and find its premise even a little intriguing, I hope you take some time to read all of it. I hope you fall in love with that world and those people, and I hope you bring yourself some good times from that experience. If this day you are already through with that experience, I hope the time you spent was worth it. My 9 years would be obliged.
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