Even if I write science fiction, I will still come back to the aspect of relationships: Ravinder Singh

Even if I write science fiction, I will still come back to the aspect of relationships: Ravinder Singh
on Aug 22, 2019

Author Ravinder Singh’s latest - The Belated Bachelor Party is very different from any of my work so far and leaves you in splits on most occasions. It’s two am in the night, and four boys are on a road trip in Europe, all the way from the Czech Republic to Croatia. They are caught between Slovenia and Croatia border in no man’s land. Two of them at the back seat are drunk, two in the front realise that they cannot enter Croatia because they have missed taking Croatia Visa. They want to take a U-Turn, but they are told that there one-time entry Schengen visa has expired fifteen minutes back. Author Ravinder Singh’s latest—The Belated Bachelor Party is very different from any of my work so far and leaves you in splits on most occasions. His ninth novel is based on a real-life Euro trip that four friends including Singh had taken. Interestingly so, they four are married and they ideate a plan to go on a belated bachelor party. The reason being they had missed going on their bachelor parties before each one of them got married. “It’s a real-life tragedy which happened to us. The most hilarious scene because of which this book took shape,” he says. Singh who is known to write emotional, eternal romance, challenged himself with questions such as ‘can he step out of his comfort zone?’, ‘can he write a book that is not romantic in nature?’. “As a creative person, I had to challenge myself to bring something new always. My last novel before this one ‘Will You Still Love Me?’ is about road safety. Your Dreams Are Mine is about youth politics. Of course, they are about romance. For the very first time I included cuss words as there as a great demand from the story, [as they are] four boys who had lived together with each other in engineering hostel 20 years down the line,” says Singh, who says he’s happy he chose to move out of his comfort zone. And, his fans on social media are already kicked about the idea of a sequel. “People who follow me on Instagram are aware of the fact that we four happened to go on two more reunion trips in the recent past. Three and a half years back we had been to Australia, and last year December we went to Bali,” he shares.

‘I observe a lot and I am a very emotional person’

The author of ‘The Love That Feels Right’, and Can Love Happen Twice? says he borrows stories from “real life” and he “absorbs what he observes”. “It may not be limited to my life or life of people in my family or my friend circle. It is motivated by the lives of people around me, unknown people, acquaintances, who I may not even know. Random people in a Delhi metro for example. I observe a lot and I am a very emotional person,” he says. Ask him what has changed in his writing career spanning over a decade, Singh faces a different challenge now. “When I wrote my first novel, I didn’t have any expectation or a reader base. The challenge was to find a publisher. Now the challenge is whether I’ll be able to stand up to my readers’ expectation. And can I now take the same risks which I perhaps would have taken to easily [earlier],” he says.

‘Even if I write science fiction, I will still come back to the aspect of relationships’

Dynamics of relationships are ever changing in today’s day and age and they have too in Singh’s novels such as I Too Had A Love Story and This Love That Feels Right. Would we ever see him move away from the theme?“Even if I write science fiction, I will still come back to the aspect of relationships. It’s the most complicated thing today to hold on to relationships. Humans are evolving and so are our relationships. I chose to write about the changing nature of relationships because this is what I observe around me. As a creative person I have to talk about different aspects of these changing relationships,” he says.

‘Name of the writer is lost in web series’

At a time when books are being adapted into films and web series, Singh has reportedly rejected offers for book adaptations into a movie or web series. He says his problem with writing for web series is that the name of the writer is “lost”. He asks: “Famous web series or movies you’d have seen..all you’d remember is the star cast or the director. producer, the banner, or the platform you happen to see. But almost every time the writer has always has to take the back seat. People don’t even get to know about him or her. That is a clash in my mind. I want to be the face of the entire campaign, if not the only face, then one of the many faces of the entire project. Unless and until I land up acting in these..it could be any role. I find it difficult to write one. Gob forbid the only day I’ll be writing one is if the books stop selling.”