Wanted child of the universe

Loss is brutal. It breaks you…into little pieces. I have been broken thrice…first by Shekhar’s sudden departure, two years later by Mom’s and two weeks after her, my father-in-law. The toll has been exponential…it is now coming up to six years since Shekhar, during which time I have felt victimized, emotionally mugged and physically bruised…with a reduced field of vision and a remarkably constricted scale of life. I have focused only on the next moment, the next step, the next action, the next…the next…until at the five year mark, I looked up. I am glad I did.

In January of 2013, I entered the Passions Contest of Mills & Boon India with a very brief first chapter of a romance novel, not for a moment thinking that my truncated writing would stand a chance in the competition. I made the top three and as a part of the reward, won a mentoring opportunity with the UK editors of Harlequin… A six month struggle to write romance while toggling my core writing on development later, my editor sent me a mail that made looking up worth it... They liked the manuscript. They would publish it in a two-book deal! For the first time in years, I felt like a wanted child of the universe.

Now, as the book hits the shelves* this week…I am setting it free to travel on its karmic journey…it is symbolic of my own traverse up the mountain of grief and down the other side. That’s the insight, there is the other side…but more important is the realization that I am a wanted child of the universe and…someone up there definitely loves me…

Here’s raising a toast to romancing the night…Shekhar, Mom, Dad…I hope you’ll join me.

Salud! Cheers! Chin, Chin!

*The book is available online at Harlequin India , Infibeam and Flipkart and will hit bookshelves across India in the coming week.

***

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus by William Ernest Henley