B.S. Murthy's Blog
September 28, 2025
BS Murthy@Pretty-Hot.com
Author Interaction https://pretty-hot.com/bs-murthy/
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Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m an Indian novelist, playwright, short story, non-fiction ‘n articles writer, translator, a ‘little’ thinker and a budding philosopher in ‘Addendum to Evolution: Origins of the World by Eastern Speculative Philosophy’ that was originally published in The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal, Vol. 05 Issue 18, Summer 2004.
Born on 27 Aug 1948 and schooled in letter-writing, I’ve articulated my managerial ideas in thirty-odd published articles, and later penned Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel, Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of wedlock, a novella, Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories, and Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays.
Then entering the arena of non-fiction with a ‘novel’ narrative of Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n more) possibly a new genre, I ventured into the translation zone for versifying the Sanskrit epics, Vyasa’s Bhagvad-Gita (as Treatise of self-help), Valmiki’s Sundara Kãnda (as Hanuman’s Odyssey) in contemporary English idiom, and a critique Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for Their Revocation).
And in the end, as a prodigal son, I returned to my mother tongue, Telugu, to craft the short story తప్పటడుగులు (Missteps).
Besides, my body of work comprises of articles on management issues, general insurance topics, literary matters, and political affairs all of which is in the public domain (Academia.edu) that is Googleable (BS Murthy author)
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I penned “Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) at the behest of my artist friend, E. Rohini Kumar, who earlier designed the book jacket for my ‘Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help’, sans 110 inane interpolations. It’s his hunch that this ‘overdue’ book dealing with those 110 inanities in the 700-sloka Gita-in-vogue could dispel the misgivings of the devout and the delusions of the doubters that clinched the issue.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
If it is unusual, I can pen only with my heart but cannot write merely for writing. It’s thus, whereas my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
My Novel’ Account of Human Possibility, here, may, in turn, influence its readers, more so, aspiring authors.
“Whenever I look at my body of work of twelve books, the underlying human possibility intrigues me no end, and why not. I was born into a land-owning family in a remote village of Andhra Pradesh in India that is after the British had folded their colonial tents from there, but much before the rural education mechanism was geared up. It was thus the circumstances of my birth enabled me to escape from the tiresome chores of the primary schooling till I had a nine-year fill of an unbridled childhood, embellished by village plays and grandma’s tales, made all the more interesting by her uncanny ability for storytelling. As my maternal grandfather’s grandfather happened to be a poet laureate at the court of a princeling of yore, maybe their genes together strived to infuse the muses in me their progeny.
However, as the English plants that Lord Macaulay planted in the Indian soil hadn’t taken roots in its hinterland till then, it’s the native tongues that ruled the roost in the best part of the vast land, and in Andhra it was Telugu, the Italian of the East that held the sway. No wonder then, leave alone constructing a sentence on my own in English, whenever I had to read one, I used to be afflicted by stammer. Maybe, it was at the behest of the unseen hand of human possibility or owing to his own foresight that my father in time had shifted our family base to the cosmopolitan town of Kakinada to put me into the missionary McLaren High School in Class X. With that began my tryst with English, which, courtesy one of my maternal uncles, eventually led me to the continental fiction in translation that engaged me more, far more than the technical subjects I had to pursue for a career as a mechanical engineer.
While the Penguin classics inculcated in me a love for English language that is besides broadening my outlook of life, my nature enabled me to explore the possibilities of youth, and given that letter-writing was still in vogue then, I was wont to embellish my letters to friends and loved-ones with insights the former induced and emotions the latter infused. Clearly, all those letters that my novels carry owe more to my impulse to write them than to my muse’s need to express itself through them. Even as the fiction enabled me to handle the facts of life with fortitude, as life, for its part, chose to subject me to more of its vicissitudes, I continued tending my family and attending my job.
Fortuitously, when I was thirty-three, my mind and matter combined to explore the effect of the led on the leader, and when the resultant “Organizational ethos and good Leadership” was published in The Hindu, I experienced the thrill of, what is called, seeing one’s name in print. Encouraged, I continued to apply my mind on varied topics such as general management, materials management, general insurance, politics, and, not to speak of, life and literature resulting in some thirty published articles. But fiction was nowhere in the sight, nor I had any idea to turn into a novelist for Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert et al are literary deities (I hadn’t read Marcel Proust and Robert Musil by then), were, and are, my literary deities, and how dare I, their devotee, to envision myself in the sanctum sanctorum of the novel.
But when I was forty-four, having been fascinated by the manuscript of satirical novel penned by one Bhibhas Sen, an Adman, with whom I had been on the same intellectual page for the past four years then, it occurred to me, ‘when he could, I can for sure’. It was as if Bhibhas had driven away the ghosts of the masters that came to shadow my muse but as life would have it, it was another matter that as he didn’t want to foul his novel by dragging it to ‘publishable length’, it remained in the limbo.
With my muse thus unshackled, I set to work on the skeletal idea of Benign Flame with the conviction that for fiction to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil, not the hotchpotch of local and foreign caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, the then norm of the Indian writing in English. Yet it took me a fortnight to get the inspiring opening sentence – “That winter night in the mid-seventies, the Janata Express was racing rhythmically on its tracks towards the coast of Andhra Pradesh. As its headlight pierced the darkness of the fertile plains, the driver honked the horn as though to awake the sleepy environs to the spectacle of the speeding train.”
From there on, it was as though a ‘novel’ chemistry had developed between my muse and my characters’ psyche that shaped its fictional course, and soon, I came to believe that I had something unique to offer to the world; so, not wanting to die till I gave it to it, I used to go to lengths to safeguard my life till I finished it with a ‘top of the world’ feeling. What one Spencer Critchley, an American critic, thought about my contribution – “It’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs” – made me feel vindicated, though there were no takers to it among the Indian publishers and the Western agents.
So, I had no heart to bring my pen to any more paper (those were the pre-keyboard days) though my head was swirling with novel ideas, triggered by an examined life lived in an eventful manner. Sometime later, that was after I read a book of short stories presented to me; I had resumed writing due to a holistic reason. While it was the quality of Bhibhas’ satire that set me on a fictional track from which I was derailed by the publishers’ indifference, strangely, it was the lack of it in that book that once again spurred me onto the novel track to pursue the joy of writing for its own sake, and that led me to the literary stations of Crossing the Mirage and Jewel-less Crown. But in the wake of the hotly debated but poorly analyzed Godhra-Gujarat communal rioting in 2002, as I was impelled to examine the role religions play in social disharmony, my fictional course had taken a non-fiction turn with Puppets of Faith.
Then it was as if my muse, wanting me to lend my hand to other literary genres led me into the arena of translation, pushed me onto the ‘unknown’ stage, put me on a stream of consciousness, took me to crime scenes, and dragged me into the by-lanes of short stories. However, it was Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, who lent his e-hand to my books in search of readers. Who would have thought that life held such literary possibilities in English language for a rustic Telugu lad in rural Andhra even in post-colonial India? The possibilities of life are indeed novel, and seemingly my life has crystallized itself in my body of work before death could dissipate it.
My body of work of free ebooks, in varied genres, is in the public domain.”
What are you working on now?
I know that I happened to pen some literature but as Shakespeare said, “To know is not to know until someone else knows that you know”, so I have been unceasingly striving to induct my body of work of twelve free ebooks, in varied genres, into the wide web of ebook world through the internet.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
What method an author can possibly have to navigate his work to its potential readers in the highly inundated book world that further gets flooded each day by fresh ebook waters, without break that is. So, I simply strive to place my work wherever possible in the wide web and hope that it catches the attention of as many readers as it might.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
One cannot generalize anything, but it is better writing nudging you into its fascinating arena than yourself barging into its laborious field.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
There’s no dearth of good advice anywhere but there is a paucity of its beneficiaries everywhere.
What are you reading now?
Nothing worth writing home about, and more over, I am involved in finding readers for my books.
What’s next for you as a writer?
But for an article or an essay to articulate some new idea, I think I’ve done with my books after my literary dozen, for, after all, one’s creativity has its own bounds.
What is your favorite book of all time?
If I were to single out one favourite book, it would be unfair to my many others that can be gathered from My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility, as above.
---------
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m an Indian novelist, playwright, short story, non-fiction ‘n articles writer, translator, a ‘little’ thinker and a budding philosopher in ‘Addendum to Evolution: Origins of the World by Eastern Speculative Philosophy’ that was originally published in The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal, Vol. 05 Issue 18, Summer 2004.
Born on 27 Aug 1948 and schooled in letter-writing, I’ve articulated my managerial ideas in thirty-odd published articles, and later penned Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel, Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of wedlock, a novella, Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories, and Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays.
Then entering the arena of non-fiction with a ‘novel’ narrative of Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n more) possibly a new genre, I ventured into the translation zone for versifying the Sanskrit epics, Vyasa’s Bhagvad-Gita (as Treatise of self-help), Valmiki’s Sundara Kãnda (as Hanuman’s Odyssey) in contemporary English idiom, and a critique Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for Their Revocation).
And in the end, as a prodigal son, I returned to my mother tongue, Telugu, to craft the short story తప్పటడుగులు (Missteps).
Besides, my body of work comprises of articles on management issues, general insurance topics, literary matters, and political affairs all of which is in the public domain (Academia.edu) that is Googleable (BS Murthy author)
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I penned “Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) at the behest of my artist friend, E. Rohini Kumar, who earlier designed the book jacket for my ‘Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help’, sans 110 inane interpolations. It’s his hunch that this ‘overdue’ book dealing with those 110 inanities in the 700-sloka Gita-in-vogue could dispel the misgivings of the devout and the delusions of the doubters that clinched the issue.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
If it is unusual, I can pen only with my heart but cannot write merely for writing. It’s thus, whereas my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
My Novel’ Account of Human Possibility, here, may, in turn, influence its readers, more so, aspiring authors.
“Whenever I look at my body of work of twelve books, the underlying human possibility intrigues me no end, and why not. I was born into a land-owning family in a remote village of Andhra Pradesh in India that is after the British had folded their colonial tents from there, but much before the rural education mechanism was geared up. It was thus the circumstances of my birth enabled me to escape from the tiresome chores of the primary schooling till I had a nine-year fill of an unbridled childhood, embellished by village plays and grandma’s tales, made all the more interesting by her uncanny ability for storytelling. As my maternal grandfather’s grandfather happened to be a poet laureate at the court of a princeling of yore, maybe their genes together strived to infuse the muses in me their progeny.
However, as the English plants that Lord Macaulay planted in the Indian soil hadn’t taken roots in its hinterland till then, it’s the native tongues that ruled the roost in the best part of the vast land, and in Andhra it was Telugu, the Italian of the East that held the sway. No wonder then, leave alone constructing a sentence on my own in English, whenever I had to read one, I used to be afflicted by stammer. Maybe, it was at the behest of the unseen hand of human possibility or owing to his own foresight that my father in time had shifted our family base to the cosmopolitan town of Kakinada to put me into the missionary McLaren High School in Class X. With that began my tryst with English, which, courtesy one of my maternal uncles, eventually led me to the continental fiction in translation that engaged me more, far more than the technical subjects I had to pursue for a career as a mechanical engineer.
While the Penguin classics inculcated in me a love for English language that is besides broadening my outlook of life, my nature enabled me to explore the possibilities of youth, and given that letter-writing was still in vogue then, I was wont to embellish my letters to friends and loved-ones with insights the former induced and emotions the latter infused. Clearly, all those letters that my novels carry owe more to my impulse to write them than to my muse’s need to express itself through them. Even as the fiction enabled me to handle the facts of life with fortitude, as life, for its part, chose to subject me to more of its vicissitudes, I continued tending my family and attending my job.
Fortuitously, when I was thirty-three, my mind and matter combined to explore the effect of the led on the leader, and when the resultant “Organizational ethos and good Leadership” was published in The Hindu, I experienced the thrill of, what is called, seeing one’s name in print. Encouraged, I continued to apply my mind on varied topics such as general management, materials management, general insurance, politics, and, not to speak of, life and literature resulting in some thirty published articles. But fiction was nowhere in the sight, nor I had any idea to turn into a novelist for Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert et al are literary deities (I hadn’t read Marcel Proust and Robert Musil by then), were, and are, my literary deities, and how dare I, their devotee, to envision myself in the sanctum sanctorum of the novel.
But when I was forty-four, having been fascinated by the manuscript of satirical novel penned by one Bhibhas Sen, an Adman, with whom I had been on the same intellectual page for the past four years then, it occurred to me, ‘when he could, I can for sure’. It was as if Bhibhas had driven away the ghosts of the masters that came to shadow my muse but as life would have it, it was another matter that as he didn’t want to foul his novel by dragging it to ‘publishable length’, it remained in the limbo.
With my muse thus unshackled, I set to work on the skeletal idea of Benign Flame with the conviction that for fiction to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil, not the hotchpotch of local and foreign caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, the then norm of the Indian writing in English. Yet it took me a fortnight to get the inspiring opening sentence – “That winter night in the mid-seventies, the Janata Express was racing rhythmically on its tracks towards the coast of Andhra Pradesh. As its headlight pierced the darkness of the fertile plains, the driver honked the horn as though to awake the sleepy environs to the spectacle of the speeding train.”
From there on, it was as though a ‘novel’ chemistry had developed between my muse and my characters’ psyche that shaped its fictional course, and soon, I came to believe that I had something unique to offer to the world; so, not wanting to die till I gave it to it, I used to go to lengths to safeguard my life till I finished it with a ‘top of the world’ feeling. What one Spencer Critchley, an American critic, thought about my contribution – “It’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs” – made me feel vindicated, though there were no takers to it among the Indian publishers and the Western agents.
So, I had no heart to bring my pen to any more paper (those were the pre-keyboard days) though my head was swirling with novel ideas, triggered by an examined life lived in an eventful manner. Sometime later, that was after I read a book of short stories presented to me; I had resumed writing due to a holistic reason. While it was the quality of Bhibhas’ satire that set me on a fictional track from which I was derailed by the publishers’ indifference, strangely, it was the lack of it in that book that once again spurred me onto the novel track to pursue the joy of writing for its own sake, and that led me to the literary stations of Crossing the Mirage and Jewel-less Crown. But in the wake of the hotly debated but poorly analyzed Godhra-Gujarat communal rioting in 2002, as I was impelled to examine the role religions play in social disharmony, my fictional course had taken a non-fiction turn with Puppets of Faith.
Then it was as if my muse, wanting me to lend my hand to other literary genres led me into the arena of translation, pushed me onto the ‘unknown’ stage, put me on a stream of consciousness, took me to crime scenes, and dragged me into the by-lanes of short stories. However, it was Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, who lent his e-hand to my books in search of readers. Who would have thought that life held such literary possibilities in English language for a rustic Telugu lad in rural Andhra even in post-colonial India? The possibilities of life are indeed novel, and seemingly my life has crystallized itself in my body of work before death could dissipate it.
My body of work of free ebooks, in varied genres, is in the public domain.”
What are you working on now?
I know that I happened to pen some literature but as Shakespeare said, “To know is not to know until someone else knows that you know”, so I have been unceasingly striving to induct my body of work of twelve free ebooks, in varied genres, into the wide web of ebook world through the internet.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
What method an author can possibly have to navigate his work to its potential readers in the highly inundated book world that further gets flooded each day by fresh ebook waters, without break that is. So, I simply strive to place my work wherever possible in the wide web and hope that it catches the attention of as many readers as it might.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
One cannot generalize anything, but it is better writing nudging you into its fascinating arena than yourself barging into its laborious field.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
There’s no dearth of good advice anywhere but there is a paucity of its beneficiaries everywhere.
What are you reading now?
Nothing worth writing home about, and more over, I am involved in finding readers for my books.
What’s next for you as a writer?
But for an article or an essay to articulate some new idea, I think I’ve done with my books after my literary dozen, for, after all, one’s creativity has its own bounds.
What is your favorite book of all time?
If I were to single out one favourite book, it would be unfair to my many others that can be gathered from My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility, as above.
August 9, 2025
BS Murthy's 'Smart Books'
This is the excerpt of BS Murthy's Author Interview at Smart Books https://smartbooksbuzz.com/interviews...
---------------------
How did you become an author and get published? Share your experience.
Generally speaking, while the author aura or writer fame push some into the writing arena, the urge to write pull others into it but as detailed in “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility” that is Googleable, it was altogether a different course for me, beginning with:
“Whenever I look at my body of work of twelve books, the underlying human possibility intrigues me no end, and why not. I was born into a land-owning family in a remote village of Andhra Pradesh in India that is after the British had folded their colonial tents from there, but much before the rural education mechanism was geared up. It was thus the circumstances of my birth enabled me to escape from the tiresome chores of the primary schooling till I had a nine-year fill of an unbridled childhood, embellished by village plays and grandma’s tales, made all the more interesting by her uncanny ability for storytelling. ….”
As for publishing my writings, it was all self-publishing in the public domain as free ebooks.
Would you like readers to have any specific takeaway from your book?
I hope my writings resonate with readers to make them feel that only fiction can lend scope for the full play of life.
Share some advice for aspiring authors. What advice would you give to your younger self?1. What is your favorite line from your book?
As writing is all about style and substance that can be acquired only through good reading, the old adage that ‘one has to be a good reader to become a good writer’ needs to be borne in mind. What’s more, one may let writing to beckon for good writing is seldom written but gets written.
Was there anything you had to research for the book?
The intellectual vacuity of the Indian media in dealing with the Godhra-Gujarat riots in 2002 impelled me to get onto the non-fictional course from my settled fictional path of three plot and character driven novels to ascertain the roles, if any, religions play in fomenting communal strife. So, I had gone through the so-called Holy Books, Martin Lings’ Muhammad and some other relevant works to formulate my ‘Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n more), in a novel narrative. And it was some effort in those pre-internet days to make notes for quotes from those in my work.
Do you have any movie or tv adaptations in the works?
Given that the creations of unheralded authors are generally handicapped for adorning the silver screens as adaptations, my Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of wedlock, a novella, and Slighted Souls, a stage play, remain in the limbo.
Do you have any personal connection to the story or characters?
In my view, it is the aptitude of the author that shapes the canvas of creativity to lend scope for self-expression which defines the character of writing.
---------------------
How did you become an author and get published? Share your experience.
Generally speaking, while the author aura or writer fame push some into the writing arena, the urge to write pull others into it but as detailed in “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility” that is Googleable, it was altogether a different course for me, beginning with:
“Whenever I look at my body of work of twelve books, the underlying human possibility intrigues me no end, and why not. I was born into a land-owning family in a remote village of Andhra Pradesh in India that is after the British had folded their colonial tents from there, but much before the rural education mechanism was geared up. It was thus the circumstances of my birth enabled me to escape from the tiresome chores of the primary schooling till I had a nine-year fill of an unbridled childhood, embellished by village plays and grandma’s tales, made all the more interesting by her uncanny ability for storytelling. ….”
As for publishing my writings, it was all self-publishing in the public domain as free ebooks.
Would you like readers to have any specific takeaway from your book?
I hope my writings resonate with readers to make them feel that only fiction can lend scope for the full play of life.
Share some advice for aspiring authors. What advice would you give to your younger self?1. What is your favorite line from your book?
As writing is all about style and substance that can be acquired only through good reading, the old adage that ‘one has to be a good reader to become a good writer’ needs to be borne in mind. What’s more, one may let writing to beckon for good writing is seldom written but gets written.
Was there anything you had to research for the book?
The intellectual vacuity of the Indian media in dealing with the Godhra-Gujarat riots in 2002 impelled me to get onto the non-fictional course from my settled fictional path of three plot and character driven novels to ascertain the roles, if any, religions play in fomenting communal strife. So, I had gone through the so-called Holy Books, Martin Lings’ Muhammad and some other relevant works to formulate my ‘Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n more), in a novel narrative. And it was some effort in those pre-internet days to make notes for quotes from those in my work.
Do you have any movie or tv adaptations in the works?
Given that the creations of unheralded authors are generally handicapped for adorning the silver screens as adaptations, my Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of wedlock, a novella, and Slighted Souls, a stage play, remain in the limbo.
Do you have any personal connection to the story or characters?
In my view, it is the aptitude of the author that shapes the canvas of creativity to lend scope for self-expression which defines the character of writing.
August 7, 2025
BS Murthy's Lit Linc Author Interview
Except of the interview https://litlinc.com/interviews/bs-mur...
------------------
When you're working on a book and a new idea pops up, should you pursue it immediately (also known as 'UP syndrome') or finish your current project first? What do you think is the best course of action?
I had a slightly different experience in that after I completed my maiden novel, Benign Flame: Saga of Love, the idea of Crossing the Mirage – Passing through youth, also a love story cropped up in my mind. However, so as to avoid the possible carry over effect on my muse, I worked with Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life before I set out to cross the mirage.
What are some books or authors that you would recommend to our readers?
I urge readers to read the classics of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert, Marcel Proust and Robert Musil to name a few literary giants that is apart from 'yours literally'.
Would you like readers to have any specific takeaway from your book?
While my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
Did you always want to be an author? If not, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Given that Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert et al are literary deities (I hadn’t read Marcel Proust and Robert Musil before I began to write), were, and are, my literary deities, and how dare I, their devotee, to envision myself in the sanctum sanctorum of the novel. But, how in my mid-forties, I happened to be a writer is My ‘Novel; Account of Human Possibility that is Googleable https://share.google/77k2PoAcXHhoov6Yi But, how in my mid-forties, I happened to be a writer is My ‘Novel; Account of Human Possibility that is Googleable https://share.google/77k2PoAcXHhoov6Yi
How long did it take you to write this book?
But for my novella, Of No Avail – Web of Wedlock and the critique Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for Their Revocation), the rest ten, as if to synchronize themselves with nature, took nine months for their fruition.
What other hobbies do you have outside of writing?
So to say, I am a man of many hobbies, penchant for reading, pursuing politics, ear for music, passion for Bridge to name a few that tend to lend substance to my writing
https://www.youtube.com/@BSMurthyAuth...
------------------
When you're working on a book and a new idea pops up, should you pursue it immediately (also known as 'UP syndrome') or finish your current project first? What do you think is the best course of action?
I had a slightly different experience in that after I completed my maiden novel, Benign Flame: Saga of Love, the idea of Crossing the Mirage – Passing through youth, also a love story cropped up in my mind. However, so as to avoid the possible carry over effect on my muse, I worked with Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life before I set out to cross the mirage.
What are some books or authors that you would recommend to our readers?
I urge readers to read the classics of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert, Marcel Proust and Robert Musil to name a few literary giants that is apart from 'yours literally'.
Would you like readers to have any specific takeaway from your book?
While my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
Did you always want to be an author? If not, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Given that Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert et al are literary deities (I hadn’t read Marcel Proust and Robert Musil before I began to write), were, and are, my literary deities, and how dare I, their devotee, to envision myself in the sanctum sanctorum of the novel. But, how in my mid-forties, I happened to be a writer is My ‘Novel; Account of Human Possibility that is Googleable https://share.google/77k2PoAcXHhoov6Yi But, how in my mid-forties, I happened to be a writer is My ‘Novel; Account of Human Possibility that is Googleable https://share.google/77k2PoAcXHhoov6Yi
How long did it take you to write this book?
But for my novella, Of No Avail – Web of Wedlock and the critique Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for Their Revocation), the rest ten, as if to synchronize themselves with nature, took nine months for their fruition.
What other hobbies do you have outside of writing?
So to say, I am a man of many hobbies, penchant for reading, pursuing politics, ear for music, passion for Bridge to name a few that tend to lend substance to my writing
https://www.youtube.com/@BSMurthyAuth...
August 6, 2025
Inside the Mind - BS Murthy
This is the excerpt of BS Murthy's Author Interview at 'Find Books & Authors https://findbooksandauthors.com/inter...
---------------------
What inspired you to start writing?
So to say, my tryst with writing began with letter-writing to express my youthful feelings in private spheres. Later, it was my urge to articulate my professional ideas that led me into the arena of articles. However, in time, I happened to enter into the ‘novel’ field to examine the human condition, as Jane Austin put it, in a fictional mirror. All this I’ve pictured it in my memoir of an article, My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility, that is Googleable https://share.google/87mnyS5oFnEuTo8OS
Can you tell us a little about your maiden novel?
Some way into Benign Flame: Saga of Love, having been convinced that I’ve something unique to offer to the literary world through the same, I did not want to die till its completion. In the end, what Spencer Critchley, a Literary Critic, said about it - the plot is quite effective and it’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs – made me feel vindicated.
How do you create your characters?
I happened to provide fictional forms to human proclivities.
What does your typical writing day look like?
I tended to write twelve to fourteen hours a day, day after day for the most part, with intermittent half-hourly breaks to reset my fatigued mind, till the completion of each of my twelve books, made possible by the absence of my professional obsession.
What has been the most rewarding part of being an indie author?
As so aptly stated by Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina, I derive my true reward through writing itself.
What’s one challenge you’ve faced in your writing journey?
Getting published, and but for the free ebook sites my body of work would never have seen the literary light.
Do you have any favorite writing tools or apps?
None at all; while my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
What advice would you give to new or aspiring indie authors?
Wait until writing beckons you to write for good writing is seldome written but gets written.
How do you handle book promotion as an indie author?
I’ve placed all my twelve books in the public domain as free ebooks and my unceasing endeavour has been to make them available in every website that hosts them for free.
What’s next for you? Are you working on a new book?
Save an occasional article on provocation or an essay through brainwave, I presume I’ve done with my writing for after all individual creativity too has its plausible limits that I sense I’ve reached with my twelfth book. Besides, with my diminished enthusiam, I'm afraid that I'm in no position to push the literary envelope for any meaningful purpose.
---------------------
What inspired you to start writing?
So to say, my tryst with writing began with letter-writing to express my youthful feelings in private spheres. Later, it was my urge to articulate my professional ideas that led me into the arena of articles. However, in time, I happened to enter into the ‘novel’ field to examine the human condition, as Jane Austin put it, in a fictional mirror. All this I’ve pictured it in my memoir of an article, My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility, that is Googleable https://share.google/87mnyS5oFnEuTo8OS
Can you tell us a little about your maiden novel?
Some way into Benign Flame: Saga of Love, having been convinced that I’ve something unique to offer to the literary world through the same, I did not want to die till its completion. In the end, what Spencer Critchley, a Literary Critic, said about it - the plot is quite effective and it’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs – made me feel vindicated.
How do you create your characters?
I happened to provide fictional forms to human proclivities.
What does your typical writing day look like?
I tended to write twelve to fourteen hours a day, day after day for the most part, with intermittent half-hourly breaks to reset my fatigued mind, till the completion of each of my twelve books, made possible by the absence of my professional obsession.
What has been the most rewarding part of being an indie author?
As so aptly stated by Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina, I derive my true reward through writing itself.
What’s one challenge you’ve faced in your writing journey?
Getting published, and but for the free ebook sites my body of work would never have seen the literary light.
Do you have any favorite writing tools or apps?
None at all; while my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
What advice would you give to new or aspiring indie authors?
Wait until writing beckons you to write for good writing is seldome written but gets written.
How do you handle book promotion as an indie author?
I’ve placed all my twelve books in the public domain as free ebooks and my unceasing endeavour has been to make them available in every website that hosts them for free.
What’s next for you? Are you working on a new book?
Save an occasional article on provocation or an essay through brainwave, I presume I’ve done with my writing for after all individual creativity too has its plausible limits that I sense I’ve reached with my twelfth book. Besides, with my diminished enthusiam, I'm afraid that I'm in no position to push the literary envelope for any meaningful purpose.
September 2, 2024
A Writer On His Writing
Lit Linc - https://litlinc.com/interviews/a-writ...
What have you found to be most challenging about writing in [genre]?
Whereas my novelistic muse effortlessly held the canvas for the characters to artify it with their narratives, as playwright, I had to innovate in crafting the scenes to contrive suspense on the stage that is in my ‘Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays’, all of which is in the public domain in the form free ebooks in varied formats.
Which character do you enjoy writing the most as a writer and why? If choosing a favorite character is like choosing a favorite child, which character do you find requires the most attention and detail from you as a writer?
All my eight fictional endeavours (three plot-character driven novels, one stream of consciousness novel, one crime novel, one novella, one collection of short stories, and a compendium of stage and radio plays) have been abundantly endowed with exceptionally unique females about whom I loved writing most about.
Indeed my ‘Prey on the Prowl – A Crime Novel’ has been ‘dedicated to all those women, whose loving glances have made my life’s journey a joyous sojourn’.
Was there anything you had to research for the book?
Being Semitic-naïve, like most Hindus, in 2002, I had to start from Abrahamic scratch to shape the ‘novel’ narrative of ‘Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n More)’ possibly a new genre.
As an author, what critique has been the most challenging for you to receive? On the other hand, what compliment has been the most rewarding?
Fair are the critics who spell out what puts them off in the book as that puts their critique/review into perspective for its readers to judge the veracity or otherwise of same for themselves. But there are also those who want the hapless author to give up writing altogether that is without qualifying the unsolicited advice at that!
Do you have any personal connection to the story or characters?
So to say, all my fiction was flowered by the seeds of my classic-reading that happened to get planted in the creative ground of my examined life, exemplified by the dedication of my ‘Glaring Shadow’ to ‘Sekhu, my elder boy for his literary course correction of this 'stream of consciousness' work to which I had lent some of my life and times’.
What have you found to be most challenging about writing in [genre]?
Whereas my novelistic muse effortlessly held the canvas for the characters to artify it with their narratives, as playwright, I had to innovate in crafting the scenes to contrive suspense on the stage that is in my ‘Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays’, all of which is in the public domain in the form free ebooks in varied formats.
Which character do you enjoy writing the most as a writer and why? If choosing a favorite character is like choosing a favorite child, which character do you find requires the most attention and detail from you as a writer?
All my eight fictional endeavours (three plot-character driven novels, one stream of consciousness novel, one crime novel, one novella, one collection of short stories, and a compendium of stage and radio plays) have been abundantly endowed with exceptionally unique females about whom I loved writing most about.
Indeed my ‘Prey on the Prowl – A Crime Novel’ has been ‘dedicated to all those women, whose loving glances have made my life’s journey a joyous sojourn’.
Was there anything you had to research for the book?
Being Semitic-naïve, like most Hindus, in 2002, I had to start from Abrahamic scratch to shape the ‘novel’ narrative of ‘Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n More)’ possibly a new genre.
As an author, what critique has been the most challenging for you to receive? On the other hand, what compliment has been the most rewarding?
Fair are the critics who spell out what puts them off in the book as that puts their critique/review into perspective for its readers to judge the veracity or otherwise of same for themselves. But there are also those who want the hapless author to give up writing altogether that is without qualifying the unsolicited advice at that!
Do you have any personal connection to the story or characters?
So to say, all my fiction was flowered by the seeds of my classic-reading that happened to get planted in the creative ground of my examined life, exemplified by the dedication of my ‘Glaring Shadow’ to ‘Sekhu, my elder boy for his literary course correction of this 'stream of consciousness' work to which I had lent some of my life and times’.
August 12, 2024
On Attitude to Money
While a conflict of interest, be it in life or in fiction, can bring about self-introspection, strange though it may seem, a casual encounter could lead to self-discovery. So it happened with me in the wake of my rebuff to a dogged tempter, “money is not my weakness” and his “what is your weakness” repartee; for the record, either I had been a straight purchase officer or a strict loss assessor, occupations amenable to monetary mischief.
However, the idea of this article is not to gloat over my uprightness but to present the genesis of my attitude to money and the vicissitudes of my life as a subject matter for possible research. But the caveat is that much of my growing up that shaped the same was in the times when the social pulls and the peer pressures, not to speak of the student stress, weren’t, as they have come to become of late, as emotionally unsettling. It was primarily because, as compared to the times now, in the days of yore, life tended to furrow in the tracks of karma siddhanta’s poorva janma sukrutam; the happy circumstances of one’s current life are the outcomes of the previous versions’ noble deeds. Besides keeping envy out of life’s framework for the equanimity of the haves and the have-nots alike, this karmic concept boded well for the collective social conduct buttressed by the individual hope of a bettered future life, never mind the bitter one on hand. But lest the laid back attitude should breed in societal lethargy, the dharmic work culture for a pragmatic life was formulated in v 47, ch2, Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help, thus: “Hold as patent on thy work / Reckon thou not on royalty / With no way to ceasing work / Never mind outcome but go on.”
Given my birth in August 1948, so to say, I was conceived under the flying Tiranga and lived the first decade of my life in Kothalanka, a remote village in the picturesque Konaseema of the agrarian Andhra Pradesh. There my paternal grandfather Thimmaiah happened to hold a ten-acre paddy field and a five-acre coconut grove and as was the wont of the landed gentry in that era, he leased out all of that. It was in that rural setting, in those leisurely times, as the eldest of the third generation in a frugal household, that I have had a carefree childhood. But, when I turned ten, my father Peraiah, a remarkable man whom I sketched as A Character of Sorts in Glaring Shadow, my stream of consciousness novel, had shifted base to Amalapuram, a nearby small town, apparently for bettering my education.
And better it did for me. In the first academic year itself, I could make myself eligible for the merit-cum-means scholarship that though I chose to forego offhand and did not think much of it either to inform even my mother Kamakshi about it. But, having come to know of my ‘foolhardy act’ from my class fellows, when my grandfather questioned my strange conduct, I reminded him that it was he who told me that we are well-heeled, and he had no more to say. But, it was much later, and long after he disposed off that family silver and mismanaged its proceeds, that I realized my little eleven-year old rustic head could have instinctively figured out that our then family means made me peremptorily ineligible for the scholarship on that count. However, despite the latter-day material modesty, my attitude to money stayed course with my life and times as my youthful grasp of the ethereal value of woman’s effervescent love made the moolah inconsequential to my being as well as immaterial to my belonging, thereby ensuring that I remained immune to its lures that is notwithstanding the truism in the adage that ‘love is no more than a hackneyed expression unless backed by money’.
It’s thus, Napoleon Bonaparte’s “the surest way to remain poor is to be honest,” has been fine with me, and thankfully, with my spouse Naagamani as well. Nevertheless, the inexplicable period of penury that followed my cold shouldering a one crore bribe made me wonder whether goddess Lakshmi, feeling slighted at long last, thought it fit to punish me, the audacious errant. But, having subjected us to a four-year financial ordeal, as if to validate the Sanatana dharma’s credo, dharmo rakshati rakshita (righteousness protects the righteous persons); the goddess had finally relented by putting our life back on its modest track, so it seemed.
However, as it appears, maybe, Suresh Prabhu of my Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, has unraveled the ramifications of the moolah in its Spirituality of Materialism thus: “It’s the character of money to corrupt the ardent, tease the vacillating and curse the indifferent. That way, there seems to be no escape for man from money. You’re damned if you have it and accursed for the lack of it”. What is more, by way of showing an escape route to his bride Vidya, he cautioned her; “make money the measure and you are in for trouble dear”; it is as if he has alerted all of us to its pitfalls so that we can collectively regulate our monetary heads to make the best use of our life within our mundane means.
However, the idea of this article is not to gloat over my uprightness but to present the genesis of my attitude to money and the vicissitudes of my life as a subject matter for possible research. But the caveat is that much of my growing up that shaped the same was in the times when the social pulls and the peer pressures, not to speak of the student stress, weren’t, as they have come to become of late, as emotionally unsettling. It was primarily because, as compared to the times now, in the days of yore, life tended to furrow in the tracks of karma siddhanta’s poorva janma sukrutam; the happy circumstances of one’s current life are the outcomes of the previous versions’ noble deeds. Besides keeping envy out of life’s framework for the equanimity of the haves and the have-nots alike, this karmic concept boded well for the collective social conduct buttressed by the individual hope of a bettered future life, never mind the bitter one on hand. But lest the laid back attitude should breed in societal lethargy, the dharmic work culture for a pragmatic life was formulated in v 47, ch2, Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help, thus: “Hold as patent on thy work / Reckon thou not on royalty / With no way to ceasing work / Never mind outcome but go on.”
Given my birth in August 1948, so to say, I was conceived under the flying Tiranga and lived the first decade of my life in Kothalanka, a remote village in the picturesque Konaseema of the agrarian Andhra Pradesh. There my paternal grandfather Thimmaiah happened to hold a ten-acre paddy field and a five-acre coconut grove and as was the wont of the landed gentry in that era, he leased out all of that. It was in that rural setting, in those leisurely times, as the eldest of the third generation in a frugal household, that I have had a carefree childhood. But, when I turned ten, my father Peraiah, a remarkable man whom I sketched as A Character of Sorts in Glaring Shadow, my stream of consciousness novel, had shifted base to Amalapuram, a nearby small town, apparently for bettering my education.
And better it did for me. In the first academic year itself, I could make myself eligible for the merit-cum-means scholarship that though I chose to forego offhand and did not think much of it either to inform even my mother Kamakshi about it. But, having come to know of my ‘foolhardy act’ from my class fellows, when my grandfather questioned my strange conduct, I reminded him that it was he who told me that we are well-heeled, and he had no more to say. But, it was much later, and long after he disposed off that family silver and mismanaged its proceeds, that I realized my little eleven-year old rustic head could have instinctively figured out that our then family means made me peremptorily ineligible for the scholarship on that count. However, despite the latter-day material modesty, my attitude to money stayed course with my life and times as my youthful grasp of the ethereal value of woman’s effervescent love made the moolah inconsequential to my being as well as immaterial to my belonging, thereby ensuring that I remained immune to its lures that is notwithstanding the truism in the adage that ‘love is no more than a hackneyed expression unless backed by money’.
It’s thus, Napoleon Bonaparte’s “the surest way to remain poor is to be honest,” has been fine with me, and thankfully, with my spouse Naagamani as well. Nevertheless, the inexplicable period of penury that followed my cold shouldering a one crore bribe made me wonder whether goddess Lakshmi, feeling slighted at long last, thought it fit to punish me, the audacious errant. But, having subjected us to a four-year financial ordeal, as if to validate the Sanatana dharma’s credo, dharmo rakshati rakshita (righteousness protects the righteous persons); the goddess had finally relented by putting our life back on its modest track, so it seemed.
However, as it appears, maybe, Suresh Prabhu of my Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, has unraveled the ramifications of the moolah in its Spirituality of Materialism thus: “It’s the character of money to corrupt the ardent, tease the vacillating and curse the indifferent. That way, there seems to be no escape for man from money. You’re damned if you have it and accursed for the lack of it”. What is more, by way of showing an escape route to his bride Vidya, he cautioned her; “make money the measure and you are in for trouble dear”; it is as if he has alerted all of us to its pitfalls so that we can collectively regulate our monetary heads to make the best use of our life within our mundane means.
July 15, 2024
TxtTale Interview - BS Murthy
https://txttale.com/interviews/the-in...
Can you share your journey with us? How did you get started in your field?
Maybe it’s apt to sum up my literary journey with an exclamation - Who would have thought that life held such literary possibilities in the English language for a rustic Telugu lad reared in the rural Andhra, even in the post-colonial India? So, the possibilities of life are indeed novel and seemingly my life has crystallized itself in my body of work before death could dissipate it – excerpted from my article “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility” that’s available in TxtTale besides other sites.
Do you identify with your main character or did you create a character that is your opposite?
It so happened that in Benign Flame: Saga of Love while Raja Rao insensibly imbibed my characteristics, said to be the case in most maiden novels, inadvertently though Prasad, the villain of the piece, came to juxtapose my sensibilities, or is it really so for many of its male readers have felt that there's a Prasad in every one of us.
Are any of the characters in your book based on people in your real life?
What is said about the novel – an exploration of human condition – has characterized my fictional forays into the short story plane and the dramatic stage too, besides the novel space that is, which tended to be led by the experiences of mine own life besides that of those I knew or heard about
Did you have any say in the cover design?
I believe that my books are fortunate for the artful covers bestowed on them by E. Rohini Kumar, Gopi and Mohan, all artists of note, to make them seem apart, if you agree.
What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment so far?
I’ve come see my life and work, literary as well as mundane, through the lens of contribution rather than the prism of accomplishment, maybe for I’ve nothing demonstrable to write home about on the latter count.
Can you share your journey with us? How did you get started in your field?
Maybe it’s apt to sum up my literary journey with an exclamation - Who would have thought that life held such literary possibilities in the English language for a rustic Telugu lad reared in the rural Andhra, even in the post-colonial India? So, the possibilities of life are indeed novel and seemingly my life has crystallized itself in my body of work before death could dissipate it – excerpted from my article “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility” that’s available in TxtTale besides other sites.
Do you identify with your main character or did you create a character that is your opposite?
It so happened that in Benign Flame: Saga of Love while Raja Rao insensibly imbibed my characteristics, said to be the case in most maiden novels, inadvertently though Prasad, the villain of the piece, came to juxtapose my sensibilities, or is it really so for many of its male readers have felt that there's a Prasad in every one of us.
Are any of the characters in your book based on people in your real life?
What is said about the novel – an exploration of human condition – has characterized my fictional forays into the short story plane and the dramatic stage too, besides the novel space that is, which tended to be led by the experiences of mine own life besides that of those I knew or heard about
Did you have any say in the cover design?
I believe that my books are fortunate for the artful covers bestowed on them by E. Rohini Kumar, Gopi and Mohan, all artists of note, to make them seem apart, if you agree.
What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment so far?
I’ve come see my life and work, literary as well as mundane, through the lens of contribution rather than the prism of accomplishment, maybe for I’ve nothing demonstrable to write home about on the latter count.
June 30, 2024
List Kindle Book Interview - BS Murthy
https://listkindlebook.com/interviews...
What are some books or authors that you would recommend to our readers?
I would like to pass on the advice of my maternal uncle, C. Subba Rao, gave me in my youth that one should begin his reading life with classics for they deepen the thinking, and broaden the outlook besides improving one’s language.
Having fortunately heeded to his advice, later on in life, when I thanked him for his advice that benefited me immensely, he said that he merely passed on his father’s advice to him, which makes me indebted to my maternal grandfather C. Kameswara Rao as well.
So, I recommend readers to read the classics of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Robert Musil et al that is besides my body of work of twelve ebooks in varied genres available as Amazon Kindles (link in my profile page) that can also be Googled for other formats in the public domain.
Have you been able to incorporate your previous experience in [jobs/education] in your writing?
In my maiden novel Benign Flame: Saga of Love, owing to my initial stint as a purchase officer, I was able to help Sathyam in the manipulation of an Open Tender in the chapter, Date with Destiny, which sadly became his undoing in the end.
Likewise in my second novel Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, given my later expertise as a Loss Assessor, I could enable Gautam to pull off a perfect insurance fraud in the chapter, Loss to Order.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
If it can be called an unusual writing habit, I tended to write continuously for fourteen hours a day that is with a few fatigue breaks in between, day after day, till the completion of each of my twelve books, most of which took nine months.
Have you ever experienced writer’s block? How did you deal with it?
Having penned twelve books, now I’m unable to pen another, maybe owing to writer’s block, or lack of enthusiasm or exhaustion of ideas and / or a combination of all. Well, one’s creativity too may have its limits and time only would tell whether or not I reached the end of mine own.
Did you always want to be an author? If not, what did you want to be when you grew up?
What with Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert et al having become my literary deities, as their devotee, all along, the thought of my entering the sanctum sanctorum of writing never entered my mind, and the interested can see how that had changed in my mid-forties in my article “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility” available at this site and in the net as well.
What are some books or authors that you would recommend to our readers?
I would like to pass on the advice of my maternal uncle, C. Subba Rao, gave me in my youth that one should begin his reading life with classics for they deepen the thinking, and broaden the outlook besides improving one’s language.
Having fortunately heeded to his advice, later on in life, when I thanked him for his advice that benefited me immensely, he said that he merely passed on his father’s advice to him, which makes me indebted to my maternal grandfather C. Kameswara Rao as well.
So, I recommend readers to read the classics of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Robert Musil et al that is besides my body of work of twelve ebooks in varied genres available as Amazon Kindles (link in my profile page) that can also be Googled for other formats in the public domain.
Have you been able to incorporate your previous experience in [jobs/education] in your writing?
In my maiden novel Benign Flame: Saga of Love, owing to my initial stint as a purchase officer, I was able to help Sathyam in the manipulation of an Open Tender in the chapter, Date with Destiny, which sadly became his undoing in the end.
Likewise in my second novel Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, given my later expertise as a Loss Assessor, I could enable Gautam to pull off a perfect insurance fraud in the chapter, Loss to Order.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
If it can be called an unusual writing habit, I tended to write continuously for fourteen hours a day that is with a few fatigue breaks in between, day after day, till the completion of each of my twelve books, most of which took nine months.
Have you ever experienced writer’s block? How did you deal with it?
Having penned twelve books, now I’m unable to pen another, maybe owing to writer’s block, or lack of enthusiasm or exhaustion of ideas and / or a combination of all. Well, one’s creativity too may have its limits and time only would tell whether or not I reached the end of mine own.
Did you always want to be an author? If not, what did you want to be when you grew up?
What with Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert et al having become my literary deities, as their devotee, all along, the thought of my entering the sanctum sanctorum of writing never entered my mind, and the interested can see how that had changed in my mid-forties in my article “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility” available at this site and in the net as well.
June 27, 2024
eBooksTap's Author Interview
https://ebookstap.com/interviews/the-...
How did you become an author and get published? Share your experience.
It’s all there in my essay, “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility”, present in this site and in the net, that one may find interesting as well as illustrative.
Can you explain your writing process? Do you prefer to create an outline and plan beforehand, or do you prefer to write more spontaneously and organically?
The characteristic of my writing process has been that once an outline gets formed with the germination of an idea and as I set out to give it a novel form, my expansive muse enables me to further my endeavour with its spontaneity, ably assisted by the characters in the making.
Tell us what you enjoy most about writing [genre].
Being a language lover, it's the ecstasy of expression that writing affords which thrills my soul, and same is the case with reading.
Would you like readers to have any specific takeaway from your book?
It’s nobody’s case to advocate adultery but in my maiden novel Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Raja Rao’s approach to the tricky issue could be a takeaway for women in liaison, and that is –
“Roopa, you know I love you, but still it’s only a part of our life – yours as well as mine - and that is the reality of our life, and of what avail is all our love if it won’t bring happiness to our lives. If not for his sake, at least for our accord, love your husband and make him happy so that we can be happier ourselves. Moreover if you are morose in your house, there is no way I can be lively in my home, in spite of Sandhya.”
Share some advice for aspiring authors. What advice would you give to your younger self?1. What is your favorite line from your book?
Instead of seeking the joy of seeing one's 'name in print', it is better to see if writing chooses him or her to afford joy to readers, and the aspiring authors may try to induce writing to make them writers by reading as many books as they can and examining the life as much as possible.
Innumerable are my favorite lines in my books, but a couple of them are -
"Thus, with nothing left to inspire possession, and having gained to make it difficult, won’t she leave me pondering over her past contours in her rotund presence?" - Benign Flame: Saga of Love.
"While he stood rooted lost in her charms, sensing that she had stolen his heart, she bowed her head as though in guilt." - Jewel-less Crown:Saga of Life.
To date, what is your favorite (or most difficult) chapter you have ever written?
In Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, my second novel, the plot demanded that the protagonist had to compromise his wife’s chastity to avert their financial ruin but how to contrive a situation in which a man is forced to part with the honour of the woman he deeply cherished was the creative challenge I faced from the outset. Though the narrative was nearing that stage of the story and in spite of raking my brain, filled for the best part with man-woman chemistry, I was unable to perceive a convincing situation. But then, as life and literature are seemingly in tandem, at the threshold of a new chapter in the couple’s life, as if to provide me the clue to solve the perplexing problem in its fateful chapter, Victims of Deceit, someone had breached my trust that threatened to jeopardize my professional interests.
Was there anything you had to research for the book?
As I was Semitic-naïve like most Hindus, I had to begin from the genesis to form my non-fictional ‘Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More)’ that's in the public domain along with my body of work of twelve free ebooks in varied genres.
What other hobbies do you have outside of writing?
At various various stages of my life, I happened to engage myself, rather passionately, in reading great books, playing good bridge, listening to soulful music and finally in writing original articles and creative books. I may say the value of a hobby is that it won’t let the vicissitudes of life significantly affect one’s life.
Do you have any personal connection to the story or characters?
The book dedication, of my Glaring Shadow – A stream of consciousness novel, to “Sekhu, my elder boy for his literary course correction of this 'stream of consciousness' work to which I had lent some of my life and times” is a giveaway.
How did you become an author and get published? Share your experience.
It’s all there in my essay, “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility”, present in this site and in the net, that one may find interesting as well as illustrative.
Can you explain your writing process? Do you prefer to create an outline and plan beforehand, or do you prefer to write more spontaneously and organically?
The characteristic of my writing process has been that once an outline gets formed with the germination of an idea and as I set out to give it a novel form, my expansive muse enables me to further my endeavour with its spontaneity, ably assisted by the characters in the making.
Tell us what you enjoy most about writing [genre].
Being a language lover, it's the ecstasy of expression that writing affords which thrills my soul, and same is the case with reading.
Would you like readers to have any specific takeaway from your book?
It’s nobody’s case to advocate adultery but in my maiden novel Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Raja Rao’s approach to the tricky issue could be a takeaway for women in liaison, and that is –
“Roopa, you know I love you, but still it’s only a part of our life – yours as well as mine - and that is the reality of our life, and of what avail is all our love if it won’t bring happiness to our lives. If not for his sake, at least for our accord, love your husband and make him happy so that we can be happier ourselves. Moreover if you are morose in your house, there is no way I can be lively in my home, in spite of Sandhya.”
Share some advice for aspiring authors. What advice would you give to your younger self?1. What is your favorite line from your book?
Instead of seeking the joy of seeing one's 'name in print', it is better to see if writing chooses him or her to afford joy to readers, and the aspiring authors may try to induce writing to make them writers by reading as many books as they can and examining the life as much as possible.
Innumerable are my favorite lines in my books, but a couple of them are -
"Thus, with nothing left to inspire possession, and having gained to make it difficult, won’t she leave me pondering over her past contours in her rotund presence?" - Benign Flame: Saga of Love.
"While he stood rooted lost in her charms, sensing that she had stolen his heart, she bowed her head as though in guilt." - Jewel-less Crown:Saga of Life.
To date, what is your favorite (or most difficult) chapter you have ever written?
In Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, my second novel, the plot demanded that the protagonist had to compromise his wife’s chastity to avert their financial ruin but how to contrive a situation in which a man is forced to part with the honour of the woman he deeply cherished was the creative challenge I faced from the outset. Though the narrative was nearing that stage of the story and in spite of raking my brain, filled for the best part with man-woman chemistry, I was unable to perceive a convincing situation. But then, as life and literature are seemingly in tandem, at the threshold of a new chapter in the couple’s life, as if to provide me the clue to solve the perplexing problem in its fateful chapter, Victims of Deceit, someone had breached my trust that threatened to jeopardize my professional interests.
Was there anything you had to research for the book?
As I was Semitic-naïve like most Hindus, I had to begin from the genesis to form my non-fictional ‘Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More)’ that's in the public domain along with my body of work of twelve free ebooks in varied genres.
What other hobbies do you have outside of writing?
At various various stages of my life, I happened to engage myself, rather passionately, in reading great books, playing good bridge, listening to soulful music and finally in writing original articles and creative books. I may say the value of a hobby is that it won’t let the vicissitudes of life significantly affect one’s life.
Do you have any personal connection to the story or characters?
The book dedication, of my Glaring Shadow – A stream of consciousness novel, to “Sekhu, my elder boy for his literary course correction of this 'stream of consciousness' work to which I had lent some of my life and times” is a giveaway.
October 21, 2023
Writezenith Author Interview: BS Murthy - Novelist, Playwright 'n Writer
https://writezenith.com/interview/bs-...
When you're working on a book and a new idea pops up, should you pursue it immediately (also known as 'UP syndrome') or finish your current project first? What do you think is the best course of action?
As I tend to get absorbed in every work on hand, so my muse too stays focussed without letting my mind to waver.
Which character do you enjoy writing the most as a writer and why? If choosing a favorite character is like choosing a favorite child, which character do you find requires the most attention and detail from you as a writer?
I would like to answer the question by quoting Raja Rao, the hero of my maiden novel, Benign Flame: Saga of Love - “Characters of fiction are authors’ children and critics’ neighbors, even if we perceive them as inadequate, nevertheless, we should appreciate the fact that they are the products of someone’s imagination, however limited that might be. It’s not often that you come across a book from which you could quote much,”
Can you explain your writing process? Do you prefer to create an outline and plan beforehand, or do you prefer to write more spontaneously and organically?
I may say that I only provide the skeletons to my muse for it to add flesh and blood to them so as to form myriad characters of my fiction.
What are some books or authors that you would recommend to our readers?
As I was benefited from my maternal uncle, C. Subba Rao's advice to first read the classics, which he later told me that his law author father C. Kameswara Rao of 'Law of Damages and Compensation' fame, bestowed upon him, I would like to pass on the same to the young readers.
Tell us what you enjoy most about writing [genre].
While my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
What have you found to be most challenging about writing in [genre]?
The playwrighting, unlike the muse-ease novel narrative, is the most challenging of the genres for it requires the writer to contrive the plot and connive with the scenes to keep the audiances riveted to their seats.
Have you been able to incorporate your previous experience in [jobs/education] in your writing?
I could conceive Sathyam's manipulation of the open tendes in Benign Flame: Saga of Love, and plot Gautam's fraudulent fire claim in Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life owing to my being a purchase officer and an insurance surveyor and loss assessor respectively.
Do you identify with your main character or did you create a character that is your opposite?
All the characters in my works of fiction have been characterized, not in black and white, but in myriad shades of grey
Would you like readers to have any specific takeaway from your book?
I believe that my books enable the reades to have a novel ‘Indian’ feel.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
If it can be said as unusual, I tended to write for twelve hours or so, day after day, till the completion of each of my twelve books, most of which took nine months for their fruition.
Share some advice for aspiring authors. What advice would you give to your younger self?
What is your favorite line from your book?
The aspiring authors may mind the saying that one cannot be a good writer without being a good reader and it's also right for them to wait till writing beckons them to write.
A couple of lines out of many of my favourite ones from my books in their context are as follows:
1_ Benign Flame: Saga of Love
‘Possession, to be meaningful, should be timely,’ he reasoned, as he increased his pace to come closer to the women. ‘When we would meet next time, who knows, she could be carrying, and shortly thereafter, holding her child in my lap, won’t I be left wondering as to what it would have been like had I possessed her before? Then, won’t it turn out to be a life-long regimen of seeing a bloated Roopa belatedly? Thus, with nothing left to inspire possession, and having gained to make it difficult, won’t she leave me pondering over her past contours in her rotund presence? And in time, won’t the hoped-for possession on a grand scale passion end up being a damp squib in a platonic fashion? It would be for sure and sadly at that.’
2_ Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life
When Sneha brought some schoolchildren for a picnic to Nagarjunasagar, Dame Luck smiled on him as though to tempt his destiny. Assigned by his boss to guide the party, as he entered the guest-house that morning, he saw her in the sofa waiting for the unknown him. Bewildered by her beauty and bowled by her charm, he stopped in his tracks. When she got up to greet him, the flow of her frame stunned him even more. As she went about assembling her flock, struck by her poise, he didn't take his eyes off her. Further, enthralled by her bewitching smile and enchanting tone, he felt as if he had retrieved his lost hope. While he stood rooted lost in her charms, sensing that she had stolen his heart, she bowed her head as though in guilt.
Have you ever experienced writer’s block? How did you deal with it?
Now after penning a dozen books in varied geners, I'm unable to push my pen on my working title ‘Layers of Life ‘n Onion like Fate’ and it is to be seen what life has in store for my work on it.
What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
When not at writing, I strive to find readers for my writings in the vast e-book world.
Was there anything you had to research for the book?
My novel non-fiction, Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More), possibly in a new genre, was the only research based book in my body of work of twelve books in varied genres.
Did you have any say in the cover design?
The designs of the book jackets of all my publications were conceived, for the most part, by my childhood ‘artist’ pal E. Rohini Kumar, of coure, in tune with my brief.
Did you always want to be an author? If not, what did you want to be when you grew up?
So to say I was absorbed in reading all along till I happened to be a novelist in my mid-forties about which I wrote in My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility and the interested can Google for it.
As was the case with most youngsters of our generation in India ( I was 1948 born ), I was merely myself as I grew up.
Where do you like to write? In a coffee shop? In your home office? On the beach?
Whenever I write a book, my muse has no issues with me wherever I happen to reach for my pen and pad.
What other hobbies do you have outside of writing?
I've been a man of many interests that was before I started writing from which time I got into the habit of pursuing my writing-related activities at the cost of most of those.
Do you have any personal connection to the story or characters?
Whereas my fiction has human connectivity, much of it also has my personal connection .
When you're working on a book and a new idea pops up, should you pursue it immediately (also known as 'UP syndrome') or finish your current project first? What do you think is the best course of action?
As I tend to get absorbed in every work on hand, so my muse too stays focussed without letting my mind to waver.
Which character do you enjoy writing the most as a writer and why? If choosing a favorite character is like choosing a favorite child, which character do you find requires the most attention and detail from you as a writer?
I would like to answer the question by quoting Raja Rao, the hero of my maiden novel, Benign Flame: Saga of Love - “Characters of fiction are authors’ children and critics’ neighbors, even if we perceive them as inadequate, nevertheless, we should appreciate the fact that they are the products of someone’s imagination, however limited that might be. It’s not often that you come across a book from which you could quote much,”
Can you explain your writing process? Do you prefer to create an outline and plan beforehand, or do you prefer to write more spontaneously and organically?
I may say that I only provide the skeletons to my muse for it to add flesh and blood to them so as to form myriad characters of my fiction.
What are some books or authors that you would recommend to our readers?
As I was benefited from my maternal uncle, C. Subba Rao's advice to first read the classics, which he later told me that his law author father C. Kameswara Rao of 'Law of Damages and Compensation' fame, bestowed upon him, I would like to pass on the same to the young readers.
Tell us what you enjoy most about writing [genre].
While my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
What have you found to be most challenging about writing in [genre]?
The playwrighting, unlike the muse-ease novel narrative, is the most challenging of the genres for it requires the writer to contrive the plot and connive with the scenes to keep the audiances riveted to their seats.
Have you been able to incorporate your previous experience in [jobs/education] in your writing?
I could conceive Sathyam's manipulation of the open tendes in Benign Flame: Saga of Love, and plot Gautam's fraudulent fire claim in Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life owing to my being a purchase officer and an insurance surveyor and loss assessor respectively.
Do you identify with your main character or did you create a character that is your opposite?
All the characters in my works of fiction have been characterized, not in black and white, but in myriad shades of grey
Would you like readers to have any specific takeaway from your book?
I believe that my books enable the reades to have a novel ‘Indian’ feel.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
If it can be said as unusual, I tended to write for twelve hours or so, day after day, till the completion of each of my twelve books, most of which took nine months for their fruition.
Share some advice for aspiring authors. What advice would you give to your younger self?
What is your favorite line from your book?
The aspiring authors may mind the saying that one cannot be a good writer without being a good reader and it's also right for them to wait till writing beckons them to write.
A couple of lines out of many of my favourite ones from my books in their context are as follows:
1_ Benign Flame: Saga of Love
‘Possession, to be meaningful, should be timely,’ he reasoned, as he increased his pace to come closer to the women. ‘When we would meet next time, who knows, she could be carrying, and shortly thereafter, holding her child in my lap, won’t I be left wondering as to what it would have been like had I possessed her before? Then, won’t it turn out to be a life-long regimen of seeing a bloated Roopa belatedly? Thus, with nothing left to inspire possession, and having gained to make it difficult, won’t she leave me pondering over her past contours in her rotund presence? And in time, won’t the hoped-for possession on a grand scale passion end up being a damp squib in a platonic fashion? It would be for sure and sadly at that.’
2_ Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life
When Sneha brought some schoolchildren for a picnic to Nagarjunasagar, Dame Luck smiled on him as though to tempt his destiny. Assigned by his boss to guide the party, as he entered the guest-house that morning, he saw her in the sofa waiting for the unknown him. Bewildered by her beauty and bowled by her charm, he stopped in his tracks. When she got up to greet him, the flow of her frame stunned him even more. As she went about assembling her flock, struck by her poise, he didn't take his eyes off her. Further, enthralled by her bewitching smile and enchanting tone, he felt as if he had retrieved his lost hope. While he stood rooted lost in her charms, sensing that she had stolen his heart, she bowed her head as though in guilt.
Have you ever experienced writer’s block? How did you deal with it?
Now after penning a dozen books in varied geners, I'm unable to push my pen on my working title ‘Layers of Life ‘n Onion like Fate’ and it is to be seen what life has in store for my work on it.
What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
When not at writing, I strive to find readers for my writings in the vast e-book world.
Was there anything you had to research for the book?
My novel non-fiction, Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More), possibly in a new genre, was the only research based book in my body of work of twelve books in varied genres.
Did you have any say in the cover design?
The designs of the book jackets of all my publications were conceived, for the most part, by my childhood ‘artist’ pal E. Rohini Kumar, of coure, in tune with my brief.
Did you always want to be an author? If not, what did you want to be when you grew up?
So to say I was absorbed in reading all along till I happened to be a novelist in my mid-forties about which I wrote in My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility and the interested can Google for it.
As was the case with most youngsters of our generation in India ( I was 1948 born ), I was merely myself as I grew up.
Where do you like to write? In a coffee shop? In your home office? On the beach?
Whenever I write a book, my muse has no issues with me wherever I happen to reach for my pen and pad.
What other hobbies do you have outside of writing?
I've been a man of many interests that was before I started writing from which time I got into the habit of pursuing my writing-related activities at the cost of most of those.
Do you have any personal connection to the story or characters?
Whereas my fiction has human connectivity, much of it also has my personal connection .
