About The Author
Mohul Bhowmick (born 22 September 1998) is a national-level cricketer, poet, sports journalist, essayist and travel writer from Hyderabad, India. He has been capped for Hyderabad at the Under-16, Under-19 and Under-23 levels so far in competitions organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI.) His debut collection of poems, This Means War came out in 2019, and has been followed by three more of the same genre and one work of non-fiction, which was a travelogue of a solo trip he took to Nepal. He works as a consultant for the sports e-magazine Sportskeeda. He is also a passionate photographer. The holder of an MBA in Finance from Osmania University, Hyderabad, Mohul also harbours the dream of turning up for Manchester United at Old Trafford and playing the guitar alongside John Mayer at Wembley Stadium.
MOHUL’S PUBLISHED WORKS:
This Means War (Poetry, 2019)
An Audience of One (Poetry, 2019)
Soaked to the Skin (Poetry, 2020)
Seeking Kathmandu (Travelogue, 2021)
They Were My Heroes (Poetry, 2022)
Read the review here: They Were My Heroes by Mohul Bhowmick – Book Review
Interview
Q) Tell us about the idea behind the book. What inspired you to write this book?
I had always been inclined towards the theme of heroes, and relatable ones at that. The book took birth from one such idea that I was pursuing. I was fortunate enough to have people around me while growing up whom I could look up to as role models. My parents continue to inspire me through their endless sacrifices as do a lot of legends in Hyderabad cricket, whom I admire tremendously. They constantly pushed me to focus more on the process and less on the result. I could think of no finer stimulation when it came to poetry, for all life is an extension of the rhythms that verses exhibit.
Q) How much time did it take in the process of writing? What did the process of writing this book teach you?
This collection has a hundred poems; it naturally took me the best part of a year or so to accumulate them. The conception of most of the poems was done over the last couple of years, though. Seeking Kathmandu had come out and was doing well, and that pivoted a lot of my attention, but I knew that there was this theme of requiem, threnody and remembrance that I wanted to pursue, and that is how They Were My Heroes took shape.
Q) What does poetry mean to you? Which is your favourite part of the book?
Poetry, to use an analogy, is a river on which we float using our dreams as rafts. Just like water, it is an emotion, an art, and an expression that can hardly be exemplified. It is something that can only be felt. We are mere artists flowing in this echo of time, gliding in its rhythms and trying to understand its cadences the best we can.
Asking me to pick a favourite part of the book is akin to asking a parent to choose between their children. However, I am not loath to admit that I particularly enjoyed the section called ‘Travel Capers’, as it combined two of my finest passions- travel and poetry. The section ‘In Tribute’ was incredibly close to my heart given that it spoke of the people whose contribution in my life cannot be measured.
‘Demons’ is autobiographical in a lot of ways, and it is a section in which I talk of myself, and to myself. ‘Romantic Leftovers’ and ‘Residues of the Heart’, as their names suggest, deal with matters more gentle than those that our cruder senses can apprehend.
Also Read: Interview with Sandeep Madadi – Author Of Nanda Devi
Q) A book that had an impact on you, which helped you in writing this one?
I read Peter Matthiesen’s The Snow Leopard at the suggestion of a friend in the winter over which They Were My Heroes took shape, but I cannot quite say that it had a direct impact on my wishing to go back to poetry after the success of Seeking Kathmandu. If anything, Matthiesen’s succinct penmanship made me yearn for writing more about travel. However, what the book did was change the way I looked at life altogether.
It made me realise that it is only the present moment that matters; regret of the past and anxiety of the future serves no purpose whatsoever. It was also, in a way, my guide towards mindfulness when I was going through a tough phase off the field in cricket as well. So although Matthiesen did not directly influence the writing of They Were My Heroes, he played a crucial role in nudging me to look at things I had not noticed before.
Re-readings of Vikram Seth’s Summer Requiem, All You Who Sleep Tonight and Mappings helped tremendously, as did Ghalib and Bahadur Shah Zafar’s Diwans. Pritish Nandy, Vijay Nambisan, Kamala Das and C.P. Surendran’s voices kept me sane as did my guiding lights, the sempiternal Hugo Williams and Dana Gioia.
Q) What makes good poetry? What should one keep in mind while writing poetry?
Rhyme and metre always hold a poem in good stead but increasingly, we are seeing a peak in free verse poetry. While purists may sneer at such contaminants, I do not quite have many qualms. I firmly believe in structures, but only for as long as they do not become shackles. After all, reading, writing and listening to poetry is a practice of pleasure for its patrons, so why cage it within the confines of an enclosure?
Q) Tell us about your publishing journey in 5 words. How did your life change after the book was published?
Persistence, persistence, persistence, persistence and persistence. There is nothing that can beat a person who just doesn’t give up.
Life has not exactly changed for me since this book was published, as it was my fifth (Mohul has published three collections of poetry and one travelogue already) but I have received a lot of love from my readers. This is what uplifts my spirit. Some of my closest friends, who have my well-being in their hearts- have critiqued a lot of my work too, and this keeps me from believing in my own hype.
Q) Tell us about your plans. Planning a new book?
My next project will be a travelogue- of where I cannot reveal just yet. The editing process has just been completed and it should undergo publication soon. I will come back to poetry because I have always believed that I need poems more than they need me; it seems unseemly to me that I should stay away from that which has given me an identity- despite of my own making- almost on equal terms with that of a cricketer.
Q) A message for your readers.
There is nothing concrete in poetry nor anything abstract; it is truly a genre where everything just flows. This perhaps gives us the best indicator as to what to look for in They Were My Heroes. Every reader will derive a different meaning from the book, and that is a luxury that perhaps only a work of poetry can claim to afford.
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