Mohit Parikh's Blog, page 3

Catchers in the Rye | OPEN Magazine

Catchers in the Rye | OPEN Magazine

Manan reviewed by Jai Arjun Singh in the Opem Magazine. Manan ''points to the promise of this genre''.

Makes me delighted and might I say proud.

Questions for You on Intuition

I have almost always relied on Intuition for life decisions, and I hope I have sense and strength enough to continue to do so.Anyhoo, I was recently asked by my uncle to send replies to some questions on the same. He feels inspired and wants to write about it. Below is his Facebook note. I urge you to read it, and answer the questions for yourself. It'd be great if some of you can share your replies with him. "As some of you know, I’d like to start speaking again - and I’m feeling partic...

The Best Ever Writing Advice That I Can't Follow Anymore

Write posthumously, said Nadine Gordimer tersely.

Christopher Hitchens explains. “I took her to mean that one should compose as if the usual constraints—of fashion, commerce, self-censorship, public and, perhaps especially, intellectual opinion—did not operate."



Gordimer's is the best writing advice that I have ever read. Incidentally, it is also one that I intuitively stumbled on by my own inquiry.
Two years ago, I was in the middle of writing my first novel. I was stuck, going nowhere, and tak...

Mentions of Manan and A New Work

- Manan reviewed by Uncle OO at Plus Minus n More. I am happy to say there are more pluses than minuses. The review notes: 
'Mohit's writing is remarkable - there is an underlying honesty and truth despite the heavy prose.' 
Here's the link to their GR review: 
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1231159507?book_show_action=true&page=1

- An F-Page of yours truly. F-Pages are a fun thing, and I was really looking forward to answering the questions here. When I received the&nbs...

Write Only When Inspired

I write little. Weeks go by without scribbling a single word. You know - I am done with making notes and preparing the structures for my next stories or book, I am all excited about them, I believe in them and am almost in the can't-wait-to-see-what-happens-on-the-page mode - I do not need further motivations or reasons to write; so I should really be writing pages and pages on a word processor, but I am not. I write little. A paragraph sometimes. Mostly, I have observed, there is a release o...

Featured as a Young Achiever

Education World - The Human Development Magazine featured me as their Young Achiever. I just received the print magazine yesterday.


Here's a reproduction of their article:

"Jaipur-based Mohit Parikh’s debut young adult novel Manan was published by Harper Collins in October 2014. Manan is set in the summer of 1998 in an anonymous sleepy Indian town slowly awakening to new information and communications technology (ICT), and revolves around the eponymous 15-year-old and his difficult adolescence,...

On Revising An Old Short Story

About two years back I wrote a short story that still rests in my drawer, so to speak. It has received (I just checked) four rejections, each for a different version of the piece produced in gaps of few months. This weekend I sat down to revise it for the nth time and churn out yet another version, but I could clearly see that the story wasn't working. It has never worked. Now, my deeply held conviction is that any story can become good upon revision. Then why was 'Her' (as I was calling...

On Revising 'Her'

I wrote a story about two years back that is still unpublished. It has received (I just checked) four rejections, each for a different version of the piece at a space of few months. This weekend I sat down to revise the story for the nth time and it still wasn't working. Now, it is my deeply felt conviction that any story can become good upon revision. Then why was 'Her' (as I was calling the latest version) not working?
You might have heard  of the popular quasi-metaphysical-law 'Everyth...

Writing and Ambition

- Don't be evil. That's what is in my mind these days. That's what I am telling myself. 'Don't be evil, Mohit.'
The thing is: I was a very ambitious aspiring writer. Therefore, desperate. I wanted things to happen to me. I used to think that if I am promising to create something good, something really good, I deserve the recognition and rewards. And now that I can clearly see that with this kind of mentality I am never going to be happy with the outcomes, what recourse would I be bound to choo...

Boyhood

- Just finished watching Boyhood. I had it on my hard disk for  - what ? - a year now? I was once in the multiplex where it was playing... and I saw some shitty movie instead. Couldn't find the courage to watch Boyhood until now. Linklater is my favorite director (along with Bergman), he is one of those successful people I love, and what if I disliked the movie? The movie won almost universally acclaim. All the more reasons to be on alert, I thought. Such high expectations, it was certai...