After years of digging and probing my friend, I managed to get my hands on the first novel I attempted writing several years ago - when I was in college. It was interesting enough to read now- sufficiently amateur and yet bringing back a lot many chain of thoughts lost in transit... If it bears your interest to read further- an incomplete, amateur novel.. get started below:
Rahul Arya was 17 years old. The only son to his parents he had never seen misery or poverty. Working parents with handsome incomes and a nice well furnished, interior-decorated house to live in, Rahul had nothing to worry about in the whole wide world.
Rahuls' architect mother, Mrs Radha Arya -well known in her circle of up-society friends for her fashion consciousness- was almost never home to create any hassles for Rahul. When home, all she had time for was to get ready to go to the parlor at the other end of the town or to attend one of her close friends' parties or attend some charity function. She had all the time in the world for the poor and helpless or the special children from the Spastic Society. She was one doleful mother to all of them. She got teary eyed just by listening to their troubles and miseries, when the organizations came home looking for her and found her home. She always ended up sparing five or ten thousand rupees to one of the orphanages to fulfill her motherly role to them all. But, today was one day she'd do away with all of those duties for Rahul. She had made sure she'd be home from morning till past midnight for him, after which she'd have to go drop off one of the partners or colleagues of her husband home. And then the turning point in her life would come, she hoped, for this she had waited several years now.
Dr. Ulhas Arya was quite the opposite of his wife. He hated all the charity-work and help -the-needy stuff his wife did. He loved only one child in the whole world - she was the one who studied so hard she hardly had time for anything else. Dr. Arya sometimes wondered how his daughter was so similar to her mother, yet so different. Rahul's sister Ashi, as he fondly called Ashwati.
Ashwati was in her 8th grade. At five feet six inches she was already the tallest girl in her class and constantly getting asked out on dates by classmates and other seniors in school. Till date, she had turned them all down, to go home. She adored her dad, almost more than how much he doted her. In her mind, he was really the best out there. He took her out to his private beaches, to the game-shooting ranches and the best of them all, to the yacht club. But there was this one thing that always troubled her -he never took her to this other club he said he was going to - the one palce he'd be gone several hours at length and return looking pleased, relaxed and with the glow of satisfaction on his shiny bald head. She would surely find out soon, but just how, she did not know. She assured herself she would find out but only when he stopped paying attention to her.
The doctor did have his own troubles. He lived on a bridge over troubled waters when at work. His hospital had become the hotbed of politics and he had become an incurable victim. Matters he could never discuss with anyone other than the red haired woman, who was the root cause of it all. She was known to everyone who had ever worked in the hospital. Her husband had originally built the hospital with all his life's earnings but had died in a freak accident a day before the hospital was scheduled to be inaugurated. He had jumped off the thirteenth floor window without leaving as much as a note. Dr Shinde's ancestral wealth had already been written by his father to his daughter-in-law. With no motive found for a murder, the case had been closed shut.
Dr. Mrs. Shinde, with hair so red with repeated use of color, it was hard to guess the real color of her hair, as was the case with her age. There were times when she could pass off as being about thirty, and others when she looked well past her sixties. No one ever knew if she had charmed the senior Mr Shinde or his son Dr. Shinde. She was known in the hospital, apart from being the chair woman, as the chief doctor.