"Shades of Grey & Green" , a Book by Me!

Can’t wait for 10^th march 14, the date of publication of my first book

“Shades of Grey & Green’. My first book, the words sounds like coming from some distant planet!  There are few things which I can boast of & one of them is a I am a good reader, I read a lot & it’s since my childhood! It has helped me a lot to become what I am today & I read right from philosophy of Ian Rand to comics like Twinkle, as subject is no bar for me when it’s reading. It’s just like visiting forests, no matter which one it is until I am lost in some wilderness! Reading has given me immense pleasure & some good friends too. But having a book of my own is something very very special & it’s like giving back something to my hobby of reading from my side! On this blog I have shared many topics & many of the write-ups only have made the book yet today what I will be sharing is what I felt for the book. Its reader of this blog as well friends only who has made me give courage to keep writing &finally made it to book, so what better than to post it here first as from here the journey has been started! It’s not important how popular the book become or how many buy it; for me it’s come in existence is enough! Here are my words for my book.....

 Why do writers write? Because it isn't there...Thomas Berger.

Frankly when its actual time to get my own book published then the words seems to left me but this quote by the witty American novelist were like gathering them again for me. Well though I don’t claim that whatever I have written & being published hasn’t been there, just like what we studied in science that there is a difference between finding something & creating something! Like Columbus found America, it was already there he just guided more people or outer world to that land. Whereas James Watt invented or created a steam engine which wasn’t there at all & so did many other scientists with their inventions! Then what’s difference between a writer & others? By me they give words to the feelings or emotions or thoughts in our minds which are there but not in any fixed form so we can’t express them the way a writer does. For me writing comes as a painting where my words are colors & the topic is the object & what better than canvas of a book to complete the painting!

I still can't believe that a book of my own write-ups is actually in making & getting published as I never wrote with aim of becoming a writer. The journey started some ten years back when I was working with DSK group & looking after engineering as well part marketing. There was supposed to be image building advertise campaign in Femina where we were to advertise one of our projects & in leave of that we have got a page space where we could write about our company or the project, whatever we wanted to write. As usual the matter i.e. write-up was to be wrote by copy writer of advertising agency & I was supposed to brief them about the project which I did. When I saw the proof , I gave corrections in my own words seeing which the media person suggested as I was handling the project I could be the best person to write about it, again which I accepted & wrote down whatever I felt about the project. Only thing I did was not just to write about the project which was a township, first of its kind then but I wrote about its social impact or angle. It clicked & then I kept on writing that column even after the advertise campaign ended.

That was the start & later with friend circle from various news papers especially Lokastta & Sakal, got lucky enough to be able to get published whatever I was writing on the various fronts of real estate industry as well environment, as the two things goes hand in hand. Later on topics like my wild life conservation trips & covering what’s happening with other cities also get added up & then it become addiction to write anything which I get exposed too. Though the focus remained on correlating whatever I see to the life around!

Eventually some good tech savvy friend suggested I should start a blog of my own articles & that front also come in existence in 2009 & any topic wasn’t a bar as blog was reflection of my own thought process. Now the topics which I couldn’t share with media also I could write here & so the thing went on. In the process I realized I am not a writer by my own thoughts, I was rather I am reactive not proactive. Whatever I am writing is a reflection of what’s happening around me & I tried to paint it in my words for my own self, which eventually seems to be liked by the people with whom I kept on sharing the same. Many such readers were suggesting that I should comply a book of these write-up, many of which were been published in news papers but each thing has its own timing. So the book’s time came when BNCA Principal

Mr. Anurag Kashyap not only just suggested that I should make a book but took lead with his team & offered to publish one such by his institute & actually set his team under Ritu Sharma madma, for the same! Well this is the story behind the book. Though there have been many actual supporters as well friends, right from Narendra Joshi, Dhruva Kulkarni, Shumita Mahajan especially entire Sakal team, who not only appreciated the write-ups but published them & gave me confidence that what I write is readable & people liked it. As I keep on receiving comments, reaction from even unknown readers about the write-ups & the way I wrote them. It was very touchy or I don’t have word to express the emotion when you get to hear "Oh you are that Sanjay Deshpande, the writer, we read your write up in news paper & liked it" type reactions! And then there are people like Mukund Sangoram whose own writing has been inspired me a lot to make my thought process flow freely & to reach out to the people through the same.

An important thing I realized about writing in the entire process is its very good stress buster & I feel relieved when I complete write-up on any topic which is in my mind. Many of us might have been experience like you hear a song on radio & try to remember the name of movie & till you don’t remember it you become restless, it’s that kind type feeling. One more thing about writing is it gave me immense confidence about my own self; as a boy coming from a small town of Vidarbha & with Marathi medium, to gather the thought process & to express the same in English is a very big thing for my own self. As my voacabillery was limited, though I am a good reader by myself, yet to read others words & to compile them for your own thoughts are two separate things & I could do that was something real morale booster for me. It does got reflected on my other activities also including dealing with people around. I become clearer, more transparent in communication & what better effect as a businessman while running my own company under the name "Sanjeevani" or even as a father, as a husband & as a friend, I could have asked for! And then I am really thankful of all these as it’s my family & friends whose cheering made me to become a good observer & helped in writing it down. I am mainly happy for my parents who are teacher by profession & what better pride I could have given them than writing a book which in some way will be helpful for the students of not only architecture but of many branches as these are the observations about making our surrounding a bit better. And I will be most happy if even one student reads this & thinks over the contents! Similarly my both sons who themselves one day will realize why their father kept them bothering with lengthy articles mailed especially at late night as that’s was the time when I wrote most of the articles. My wife Ashwini too has an important role of being with me all the time which matters most as it it kept me relieved from home front issues. Few names if I don’t mention then it will be injustice to their support in my entire journey from a bachelor vagabond engineer to somewhat mature person who can see life more clearly & its Nitten & Punam Mahajan & Vijay Bondale; as any man is zero without a real good friend & its these names who saved me from being a zero. Most important is my entire team at Sanjeevani who allowed their boss free time by virtue of which I can not only move around but was able to focus & absorb whatever has been written in here! My parents will be most happy as being teacher by themselves, their son writing a book which will be referred by students is the best tribute I can pay to them for making me what I am today!

Lastly about the contents of the book, well it’s nothing special as most of the things are happening around & we all have our own opinions about them. Also it’s not been aimed for some particular class or age group as its everybody’s book. What I have tried is to make the reader reactive like I have become after getting exposed to the issues in the write-ups. You will notice that each of the write-up starts with a quote, some by the authority in the field of philosophy & art! I am fascinated by the word power of these great people which quotes I come across in my reading & keep collecting the same. Out of that stock I used the quotes as a theme of that particular topic as what I have to say in so many words, these people have covered in one sentence! Friends, so many things happen around us & we just let them go as if we have become reactive to the things only close to our day to day routine & it’s this limited re activeness of each of us has landed the entire society in sorry state is what I feel. I am not a philanthropist or protagonist to make people ready for change or revolution as that’s too big a thing. But all I can appeal is make out some time for picking out smallest of the things around while you go through your daily ritual like a small poor boy walking barefoot in front of you on footpath or a garbage bean overflowing alongside the road or a unknown person greeting you with smile in the lift & you can be a cause to change, however small it may be. And its small change by each of us can be a chain reaction for something real good for all the society.

So go ahead & find your own-self through my words is what I wish for the readers....


--

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

MSEDCL (Power) Committee, Credai, Pune

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.in/

http://visonoflife.blogspot.in/2013/01/identifying-good-builder.html


Social Side of Sanjeevani ! (Click link below)

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