Am I an avatar? Or am I a stranger in this complex world, experiencing world weariness? Where did I come from? Where did my life begin? Who am I?”
These lines from the book, Shivu and His Ten Upon Ten, shows the questions the protagonist is grappling with, and they reflect the confusion most of us face in life. While running behind success in this fast-paced world, many forget to look for the true purpose of their existence. Explaining the genesis of this book, author Retty Velayoudam says, “I always wanted to write fiction that would help the youth in their development and success. I have been counselling youth in their difficult phases as well as motivating them. I wanted to bring out the grey line between good and bad traits; and how we fall prey to our own conscience. Success in life again is a point of view in several senses.” The protagonist of the book, Shivram Sharma, was forced by a maverick father to excel in every aspect of life. However, this pressure led Shivram to failure and he ended up unsuccessful in everything.
“Ten upon Ten is something we all start with as our first endeavour to triumph. The child starts as early as in kindergarten to crave that mark. The idea is thrust into his head. Being successful doesn’t require mere intelligence but it is also a result of being consistent and maintaining goodness. Therefore, I created Shivram who strays from good values and takes up vices. I have highlighted the importance of goodness and moral values through my protagonist,” says Retty, adding, “Shivram eventually undergoes the arduous journey of seeking the truth of real success in life. I included other characters Shivram encounters in life in order to include the various challenges of youth, of different layers of society, and various problems of youth viz. unemployment, career issues, problems of lust, greed, dishonesty, effects of liquor, smoking, drugs and so on.”
Interestingly, unlike most books, Shivu and His Ten upon Ten starts with Chapter ‘0’. Ask the author about the same and he says, “The core theme is that goodness wins eventually. Chapter 0 is meant to bring characters with extremes of bad values towards goodness. Characters of different layers of society psychologically fall flat on the ground and are eventually forced to gravitate towards the protagonist who they all presumed was an epitome of goodness.” Having grown up on the beautiful streets of Pondicherry and lived in various places like Germany, Singapore, New Delhi and currently working as a SAP Solution Architect in the US, Retty has a good perspective of different geographies, people and work cultures. “This helped me a lot in writing this book. The strange fact is that I have never been to Goa or Kolkata, Orissa or the far east in India. However, with research, I wrote about a detailed trip in Goa and Kolkata.”
The book also explores a few spiritual and Hindu mythological stories and characters. Talking about how of late, the stories of many books are woven around mythological stories or characters, Retty says, “I believe that the Mahabharata is the mother of all stories. I believe book lovers would like to go back to such stories that are more meaningful and have great content. I will not be able to speak for or against other genres but in my book I tried to bring values from such stories like the Mahabharata and relate them to the contemporary world.” Retty, who is a big fan of the writings of Charles Dickens, Herman Hesse and Victor Hugo, shares that many of his characters were inspired by characters crafted by these novelists. “However, my characters also accommodate the various layers of contemporary society and include all the good and bad traits of human nature.” Apart from writing, he likes a good game of chess and working on math brain teasers to relax.
