In Conversation with Shubham Swaraj

Shubham Swaraj has written a beautiful book “Likhawatein Gulzaar Hai”. His hobbies consist of Writing, Travelling, Photography and cycling. Let us know more about him in this interview.

Q1) Since when did you start having interest in writing? Tell us something about your writing journey.

Ans: I believe that growing up, every single one of us dreams of writing a book of their own, an autobiography or a love story or whatever. I remember writing my first ever poem for my mother when I was in the 6^th grade. That was definitely the first step I took in this journey. Since then, my writing was always off and on until the 9^th grade where I met some like-minded people who liked to express their feelings through reading and writing, and also appreciated each other’s work. I wrote consistently through the next two years, and had a diary of my work. Unfortunately, in the 11^th grade I somehow lost the diary and got distressed over it, leading me to give up writing consistently for a sizeable duration of time. Gladly, when I entered my college in the Delhi University, I found similar people once again, who were a part of the Literary Club of the college, called “Petrichor”, I rediscovered the poet in me and started again. All that you will read in this book, is a collection of all my writings from 2017 to 2021, pretty much a summary of what I have been as a person and as a writer in those 4 years.

Q2) How did the idea of “Likhawatein Gulzaar Hain” come to your mind. Tell us more about the plot of the book. Also share the link of the book.

Ans: As I mentioned earlier, the urge to get published was always there. So, I kept on writing during my college days, posting it on social media with the channel name of “Likhawatein Gulzaar Hain”. The name of the book just happened to me randomly and I decided to go with it. Honestly, I have never even pondered upon how and why did I go ahead with this name. So, when I started compiling all my work in the Covid period, in the pursuit of being productive, I could not think of a better name than this. So the book’s idea was not just a random one, but something that kept coming to me incessantly. Speaking of the content of the book, it’s divided into three sections attributing to Poetry, Ghazals and Shayaris. Basically, it’s a Poetry Collection or Kavya-Sangrah, that will take the reader through various emotions.

Q3) Tell us something about your hobbies. Have you mastered the art of managing your hobbies and your passion by now or you are still finding ways to do it?

Ans: Well to be honest, I don’t think anyone can master the art of managing their hobbies as it is a continuous pursuit. As an individual, you won’t just have only one hobby and depending on how you are feeling at a particular point in time, you are totally bound to swing with different ones at different instances. This is majorly because, hobbies are something that come through your heart, and you don’t usually “manage” something that’s coming from your heart. Though I do agree that there can be brought, into our lives, a balance between our hobbies and our passion. For me for example, writing is a hobby but I’m extremely passionate about a number of things like history, cricket, movies, etc. And no, I haven’t yet found the perfect balance between them.

Q4) From preparing the draft of the book, to selecting the cover page to publishing it, it is a process that requires total scrutiny and involvement. Tell us about your experience and were there any hardships that you faced in the process?

Ans: Drafting and compilation of a book is a key process that one needs to follow. Ad honestly, that’s where your persistence is important. It’s a long and tiring process, combined with the editing that goes into sending the final draft of the book to a publisher. Once you are past this step, then comes the next struggle, that’s sending your draft to the publishers. I sent it to several publishers, including Rekhta and Rupa, didn’t get any response from Rupa and got rejected by Rekhta. After all, it got accepted by two publishing houses, and then I decided to go with Rajmangal Publishers. After editing it further, came the step where I had to choose a cover page for the book. This was a pretty tough question for me to answer, I had to think of something which was related to the title of the book, something that looked appealing to a buyer, and also something that soothes the eyes and the soul. I believe that I am not very good at making aesthetic choices, so I turned towards the ladies in my life who have helped me in such situations on different occasions, that’s my sisters and my female friends.

Q5) There is a large section of the youth who thinks of writing their solo book but lack the courage to do so. What is your advice to them?

Ans: Well all I can say from my journey, being a youth myself is that one should never stop dreaming and trust in the process. If you keep writing no matter what, one day you will definitely hit a point from where you can paint a clear picture of what you want. If it is publishing a book that you want, you would definitely give all that you have got to make it happen. So far as the courage to do it is concerned, identify from among the people you know, those who can support you in this journey of getting published. Once they are by your side, you will soon be comfortable with the idea of doing it in your mind. And when the mind is free, half the battle is won. So just keep reading and keep writing.