Hi Friends,
* After a long struggle, Kindle edition of my book, "Parrot under the Pine Tree," is being published by Amazon on 09 Feb 2017. It will be available on Amazon site all over the world. I'm indeed very grateful to you all for visiting my blog regularly and encouraging me to post on a variety of subjects. Writing fiction remains my first passion; the other being painting. You all have read excerpts from the books many times in the past. Finally, the book will be out in the digital market on 09 Feb 2017.
* The first few paragraphs:
From
the pagans of the pre-Vedic period to the faithful of the post-Vedic era, only
the Sun God hasn’t lost its eminence in the daily lives of the human beings.
It’s held in reverence by both the believers and the atheists. The heliolatry
has persisted from the prehistoric times. No natural phenomenon has captured
the imagination of so many people as the sunrise, which has provided
intellectual nourishment to the educated for generations.
And it was the sunrise of a divine kind that drew
thousands of enthusiasts to a lesser known place in the Himalayas. These were
pre-dawn hours. From behind the snow-capped mountains, hidden under the veil of
brume, the sun prepared to rise. It was taking time to climb those lofty peaks
with precipitous gradients. In the valley below lay a sleepy little town.
A long road winding through effulgent valleys, dotted with
huts and fields, approached Kausani, a quaint hamlet perched atop the
ridgeline. Thereafter it cut through the place splitting it in two unequal
halves and then vanished into the Katyuri Valley, overlooking the white
sentries. The two ridges-halves spread like the wings of a gigantic dragon.
More huts adored the forward slopes. For centuries Kausani had loved and
revelled in its aloofness. Throughout the year it covered itself in a blanket
of obscurity, as if it hated civilisation. Of late, the hotels and resorts like
pockmarks had sprung up all over on the forward slopes and destroyed its beauty
and tranquillity. Kausani resented their presence on its soil and often shed
tears in the calm, dark hours, but each morning with a smile awaited the day’s
arrival for itself, its inhabitants and its guests.
