Subhechcha Ganguly 
Born and brought up in the humble suburbs of old Seremban town, Anupama Ravindran Menon, @Anu, is your regular girl next door. Having graduated from the prestigious Manipal University, she started training as an intern shortly afterwards & began serving as a doctor in the Malaysian Armed Forces. As much as Anu is a passionate young doctor blooming in her field, she awes art in its every form, be it music, dance, writing, painting or creative work.
After obtaining a Distinction award in the University of New South Wales English Assessment at the age of 13, she began exploring into the writing part of herself. She was apart of multiple national essay writing competitions and privileged to be shortlisted for the Prestigious Dublin Literature Writing competition in 2004. After winning her first prize in the International Notion Press Short Stories competition 2017, she was published as a joint author alongside 19 other writers in Plotpourri, an anthology of short stories. She had also successfully done her first solo painting exhibition entitled Hridhaya:Language of Heartbeats in 2018.
As medicine is her ultimate field of passion & to answer her call of duty, she was given the opportunity to serve under the United Nation’s (UN) flagship in a peacekeeping operation in Lebanon in 2019-2020 (UNIFIL). She was a part of an entourage of the Malaysian Battalion 850-7 who actively serve in this region over decades. Apart from being a United Nations ambassador & a doctor in field, she was also the Gender Focal Point representative of the nation & become an active part of the COVID-19 crisis team under the tutelage of UNIFIL Medical HQ & WHO. She represented Malaysia in a few international virtual symposiums to present regarding the adversities & challenges of COVID-19 in operational areas, namely by Vietnamese Defence & UNDPKO & CUNPKO of India. To honour the contributions, she was awarded with the United Nations Peace Keeping Medal and other honorary certificates. She is also currently a nominee for NE8x ® Litfest 2023 Award & Author of the Year 2023 award. She also won first runner up in the recent 7th Indie Author’s Championship 2023 by NotionPress publications.
Q1) How did you understand your calling as an author ? What was your first writing experience ?
I am avid believer of live, love & laugh.I also realised that I enjoyed writing from a very young age but I had never taken myself seriously as a writer. As time flew by,I was preoccupied with work & noticed that I too had been taken into the depths of modernism & materialism. I was looking for an outlet of fresh breath of air to revoke my inner passion & love towards life again. That was how I ended up scribbling again. Scribbles as I call my work, are solely themed around various shades of love in daily living. Utilising every stroke of pen and blot of ink optimally, I try to depict human emotions through a maestro of well-orchestrated words. Blank sheets of papers are mediums used to string different chords of emotional surges, where beloved moments and memories are scribbled through a wide array of words. With a pinch of poetry, a tonne of emotions and a drizzle of dreams, my stories capture simple, daily moments that lay down the basic essence of love to awaken our most primal living essence, to be humane & human. After winning the competition in 2017, I began to take writing in a different perspective more seriously.
I still remember my first piece, dating almost 2 decades back. It was entitled “ Unsung Heroes” & I wrote it paying a homage to all fathers, especially my dad, Mr Ravindran Menon. Surprisingly, it won me first place in the inter school competition. Ever since it’s been a number of scribbles but mostly kept away in journals & diaries.
Q2) How did you decide the plot for “Dear Manusha ”. Give us a short brief about the book .
As I had mentioned earlier, the millennial generation is running a cat & dog race focusing its entirety upon modernism & materialism. Reflecting upon your own mirror, how many times do you actually ask yourself if you are happy? Are you at peace? Do you smile when you end your day after working so hard? Many people consider this menial.
I tried asking this to myself & I realised that our mundane robotic routine has swept most of the humane part out of us. Being able to carve a smile on loved ones & total strangers & going to bed with a full heart & clear conscience. It might sound like the simplest of things but I think that is what success & happiness means to me. The most basic but of utmost importance. Being able to touch a person on a deeper level is something we tend to forget. Hence, Dear Manusha was born as a reminder to me & many of us that love is the most primal instinct we have all been wired internally to be human. It is a memoir, dedicated in honour of love and beloved. Daily episodes highlighting bird’s eye view of what love means to many who stay and love in silence, despite diverging destinies. Dear Manusha is a homage to each & everyone of you to reignite many hidden emotions & memoirs. It will spiral you down your favourite memory lane, bringing you back to the joy of love and memories, both healing and inspiring.
Q3) Nowadays a majority of the youth is much more focused on social media rather than reading books. What is your view on this topic ?
Social media is an amazing arena which connects people from all walks of life. Many a times it is also an aide for reading & exploring. The impact of technology in our daily lives is impeccably undeniable. I think reading is one of the most underrated hobbies in the world. In order to accommodate to the current world of books, every manuscript created is sold in both hard copy & an E-book version. It is encouragement for millennial readers to venture into this habit. The question is how far is this working in daily practice? Having old school ideas as the crux of my being, I still believe that nothing beats the feeling of having our fingers run through the crisp pages & being immersed in the aroma of a freshly printed book. The sense of ownership & pride is a whole different experience. Reading is the key to a free travel pass enabling you to embark on a journey through the mind of another. I hope it will be embraced & kept alive forever.
Q4) Kindly attach the links of your book so that the readers can get a grasp on these beautiful reads.
I’d be honoured to share the links.
They are available in both hardcopy & ebook versions on multiple platforms namely :
- Notion Press : https://notionpress.com/read/dear-manusha
Q5) We know that there is a lot of hardwork that goes behind the launching of books .From preparing the final manuscript to writing the first draft till publishing. Tell us how your experience was and to whom would you dedicate your success in this entire process?
I think the entire journey was a rollercoaster. It had its moments of ups & downs. What really caught me by surprise & admiration, was the constant requirement of persistence & resilience to finish what you start. Hats off to all the writers & authors who do it every single time. The favourite part was watching it all come together, however the least favourite part was the tedious process of bringing them all together.
As a matter of fact, a good publisher is a crucial reason in the birth of many fabulous writers.
In my case, I’d like to thank my beloved family & loved ones for standing by me. NotionPress for having a great publishing team who worked the process of producing the book so meticulously. Being an amateur writer in this magnanimous world of books & writing, I was also away at Lebanon for UN mission at that time period. Working in a war torn nation, with electricity solely dependent on the functionality of meagre generators, stable network & connection caused problems in prompt delivery of information & responding to emails & questions. Yet NotionPress managed to assist me very well & got this project completed. I’d give them a huge kudos for that. So on behalf of many budding writers, I’d like to say thank you to all you publishers for making our dreams come true. I dedicate this to my dad, Mr Ravindran Menon & all loved ones, it is a homage to love & off love.
