Meet the Author: Gopal Chowdhary

Hi folks!
I am back with another interview. This time, I have Gopal Chowdhary with me. I had a chance to chit-chat with him about his journey as a writer, his ambition and his interests. Read along and enjoy!

Tell me a little about yourself and your background?
I am a social activist of the academic type. I belong to a middle-class family of Engineers and Doctors. My father is an Engineer and mother, a Doctor. My siblings are either doctor or engineers. While growing up in a backward and highly stratified society of Bihar, I became disgusted with social and political realities. I wanted to understand the social and political contradictions that exist not only in Bihar but in the whole country. This led me to pursue higher studies and I came to JNU, New Delhi.

In the pursuit to understand the political and social contradictions, I wrote a book, ‘Political Auditing: A Manifesto for Rescuing Democracy’. I developed a model of political auditing to bring reform in our political and social system. I founded an NGO, Society for Political and Forensic Auditing.

Then, I came to realize that current political and social realities have their roots in history. This realization led me to do a historical research study and it resulted in the publication of “The Greatest Farce of History’. Afterwards, I found out that these political and social realities are related to larger world issues and it resulted in the publication of a long philosophical essay, “The Crisis of World and Krishna Pure Monism”.

I moved to Literature and ‘Modern Confessions’ is my debut English novel, published by BecameShakespeare.com. Before it, I wrote debut Hindi Novel, ‘Wo to Nahi’, which has also been published by BecomeShakespeare.com

What were you like at school?
I was naughty type, but certainly not a bully. Whenever our class teacher asked the students what they wanted to become in future, I responded with a very funny answer: Driver of Tractor. But perhaps it was a childish expression of social engineering!

What are your ambitions for your writing career?
For me, writing is to communicate my ideas. Lately, it has become a condition for living. I write; therefore, I exist.

Which writers inspire you?
There are many writers that inspire me such as F. S Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Connard, Shakespeare, Calvino Italo, Zadie Smith and Prem Chand, Aggaey and Nirmal Varma in Hindi.

Give us an insight into your main character (referring to ‘Modern Confessions’). What does he/she do that is so special?
The main character, Maan, is the very epitome of modernity. But he is anti-thesis of modernity too. He gets entangled in free for all lifestyle and burns his finger. But this main character is so powerful that through him, the dark belly of modernity is revealed. Through his character, modernity and modern life reveal its nuances. He seeks freedom in multiplicity and gets his being split into multiple personalities. His partner leaves him and he is sucked into the lure of LGBTQIA as fashion and culture. He loses his gender and gets stuck up in no gender realm.

By the time he realizes that to live in one’s gender is better than dying and losing every moment of life in another gender, it becomes too late. He goes insane and checks out with psychiatry. The psychiatrist suggests him to get married but his marriage breaks at the altar of an AI maniac. He meets an American monk and goes to the Himalayas.

While his American friend finds solace in Buddhism, Maan is unable to find any meaning for living. He believes in living life not leaving it and becoming a monk. He wanders into the wilderness of Himalayas and meets a nomad queen. He lives with the queen and helps her and her tribe to leave nomad life and enter the civilized life. But he gets disillusioned there and comes back to life and civilization.

But when he comes back, he finds a pandemic has struck the world and Human life seems to have gone back to the tribal mode of life. He is unable to decide about his life and the world. But then he realizes that what has happened or will be happening in life. He realizes that life processes and in accepting it as such, is life and its attendant freedom.

What are you working on at the minute? What’s it about?
Right now, I am working on political utopia of one world, one government.

Tell us something about your journey with BecomeShakespeare.com. How have you enjoyed your publishing experience so far?
My journey with BecomeShakespeare.com has been very fruitful. My works have got wider recognition and reach. The publishing was never so easy and fascinating until I published my debut Hindi novel, Wo To Nahi and debut English novel, Modern Confessions. The state-of-the-art technique of BeocmeShakespeare.com, its professional team and its reach to international market has made it number One new age publishing company.

What genre are your books? What draws you to this genre?
The last two of my books were fiction. Fiction provides tremendous scope and freedom to express oneself. Here, there are no limitations and one could go for the moon.

Which actor/actress would you like to see playing the lead character from your most recent book?
As to which actor could play the lead role of my character, I am unable to decide. The character is so bold and varied that only versatile directors like Shekhar Kapoor or Mahesh Bhatt could decide the actor if they happen to find my book worth for film making.

How do you think you’ve evolved creatively?
Yet to find my best. It’s just the beginning. Moreover, creativity is infinite and it keeps on evolving till eternity.

What is the hardest thing about writing?
To find the plot and how to develop it.

Do you proofread/edit all your own books or do you get someone to do that for you?
I do it myself.

How can readers discover more about you and your work?
By just reading my fiction and non-fiction works. I am what my writing is, perhaps.

Well, that’s all, folks! Thank you for reading.
Till the next time, Happy Reading!

Ciao!