Glimpses of city author's travel chronicle

The fictional Tamara's experiences, meeting people in different places and how she finds fulfillment in a journey which is all adventure in which the path itself the destination, is also the story of the Chennai-based childbirth educationist Rakhi Kapoor.

Writing was always a passion for the lady who inherited the habit from her grandfather and her parents. Having always been the greatest admirer of Tagore’s Geetabitan and poetry, Paulo Coelho’s literary works and Osho’s Krishna Consciousness, her passion for writing started growing by the year. “My best friend is a book, or I always have a scribbling pad and a pen. I like to travel all over the world and write a beautiful diary on things happening around me,” Rakhi shared enthusiastically.

After coming back from a Nepal trek in September, 2014 she came up with the idea of writing the story of the girl in the book. During the trek, she had to return because of an illness, leaving the team and even her partner in Thame, a village in Nepal as high as 12,000 ft.  Wandering listlessly on rough terrain, getting lost, exploring life, and finally emerging as a confident woman was the girl’s destiny.

Why did you choose to become an author?
It was a big deal for me to write a book. Since when I was a little girl, I always wanted to be an author. I had this habit of writing notes from childhood.

What are the things that made you to write the story of the young girl Tamara?
Writing has been my passion and the people who are very close to me would have chosen the easiest way to make me happy - which was by gifting me a nice scribbling book or a diary. This was my story - think beyond the obvious, try, fail, fall in love and take the flight to a life of your own dreams.
 
What was the book all about that you wanted to depict through characters?
The book is about a growing woman’s story - my story. However, I had to fictionalise and create ‘Tamara’ - the girl who was left behind. A young woman got left behind in the middle of a trek, in the wilderness all by herself. Against the challenging mountains of Nepal - heartbroken, abandoned and rejected - she meets with an unconditional source of strength and self-satisfaction that lies within us.

How do you get to travel when you are in the profession of a childbirth educationist and a physiotherapist specialising in antenatal and postnatal counselling.
I have been a Chennai-based physiotherapist, run my own centre, Dwi Maternity Studio at Gopalapuram. I am a Bengali by birth, but after getting married I settled here in the second grade once again after schooling.  I wanted to publish a book on pregnancy, about my profession, which is still on the backburner. I am determined that with training the expecting mothers will overcome the pain of natural childbirth, and I want to make them able to handle the experience of labour pain.

Will you share your touching experiences that you have gone through while traveling?
I was traveling in Thailand, Maya beach; we were camping overnight in a beach with snorkeling facilities. We were left there in the evening for a night swim and stayed at a beach without electricity. I met a beautiful woman from Paris who was the tour coordinator. She seemed to be very frustrated with city life, a plastic living, after leaving her family. At the end of her story I was left with a fascinating experience that I would remember forever.