Why I wrote a book titled Obsessed
Obsessed is not just a book for me, it is a journey, not just of becoming a writer but also of becoming a more empathetic person. During college, I was particularly fond of Greek literature. I was learning to admire women like Lysistrata who made other women go on a sex strike and thereby stopped an ongoing war. I was also learning to empathise with someone like Medea who murdered her sons to avenge her husband’s infidelity. The idea behind the book was to create a story unique like theirs.
When I started writing Obsessed, I just had a story in my mind. At that point, I didn’t think of becoming a writer, forget about getting published. But this story was born within me and on most nights, I found myself working on it, in my mind. It had to find an outlet.
I worked on this book for three years — it then had a different title. While we were rigorously reworking on the manuscript, my editor suggested that the title should be either Obsessed or Obsession. I immediately liked "Obsessed" as it did justice to the story and the characters. Every character in the book is obsessed at different levels, for different things, whether it is love, success, fame, family or money. The magnitude of their obsession defines who they are inside. It is this obsession for something that makes them very natural, real and relatable. We are all different degrees of obsessed.
The book plays with the duality of sane and mad and how these realms overlap at various points in the lives of the protagonists. What happens when the boundary between sanity and insanity, real and surreal is blurred? In Obsessed, the world of imagination collides head on with reality and the destruction that follows is irrevocable.
Obsessed also throws light on the changing nature of families in our society. With growing ambition, parent-child relationships are at an all-time low. Much like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the book underlines the question of nature versus nurture. Are children born today more violent? Or is it the environment that makes them so? It will make the readers pause and think, “What are we doing to our kids? What is more important than love and quality time?”
Lately, there has been a rise in the number of cases where a child is abused by someone close. Most disturbing are the cases where the biological father abuses the child. This book might also be seen as an act of subversion as the daughter turns into a rebel and flouts every norm that is set for her by her family and society.
Unimaginable events follow.
Like any other writer, I had my share of ups and downs. There were days when I could write pages and move the plot forward. Then there were days when I would struggle to put even a few sentences together. The subject was quite disturbing and it affected me many a time.
At that time I used to take a break for a few days and indulge in reading or binge-watching various series, Sherlock being one of them. Coming back to the manuscript after a few days with a fresh line of thought and perspective helped.
I struggled for about three years after I finished writing Obsessed. I sent the manuscript to almost every publisher, big or small, that I would find on the internet and otherwise. I reworked the manuscript thrice but nothing was working in my favour. Those were the worst times of my life.
I love writing. It is the only thing I believe I can do while being at perfect ease with myself. But it was going nowhere. Despaired, I left Obsessed aside and started writing my second book. Meanwhile, I got active on Twitter where I wrote microfiction and micropoetry and gained a lot of followers who appreciated my work.
It was on Twitter that Ravinder Singh asked me to write a book. And then my life changed. From a writer, I became an author.