My Journey with My Pen

Anand Gokani. MD.

Is a Consultant Physician with Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases as a speciality.  Dr Anand Gokani has practised at the Bombay Hospital and the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai for the past 36 years.

Influenced by Socrates’ cryptic missive, ‘the unexamined life is not worth living,’ I decided that it’s time to take a break from just reading voraciously and to start to pen my thoughts and experiences. The start, as with all things good, was difficult… the proverbial writer’s block or inertia… but as the thoughts began to flow, the mind raced far ahead of my pen. In the span of two years, my book—A Fistful of My Sky—started taking tangible shape. Many re-viewings and rewritings later, the final manuscript emerged. Of course, your own writing is never ever good enough, and so I kept feeling I could do better. However, at one stage, ‘I’m done!!’ … for better or for worse.

Aspiring Author Struggles

Then came the search for a publisher. The big names apologetically proclaimed…’we don’t do this genre’… ‘we don’t take on newbies’…’why don’t you try….’ and they would refer me to someone else. Just as I was about to pack the manuscript in the oblivion bag, I saw an email… a random email…from Zorba Books… saying they’d help me self-publish! A veritable answer to my prayers! A few email exchanges, a reassuring telephone conversation, and very soon, the book, in reality, in tangible, readable form, was born.

Impact of a Published Book

There is no looking back since that day. A series of book launches…meeting different people…words of praise …of appreciation… of awe and admiration… it was a whole, new, refreshingly different world opening up before my eyes. Attending book readings, lit fests, being recognised and appreciated was a new experience altogether.

Power of Storytelling

What delights me most, above the new found glory, is the fact that one of my readers, a medical student, wrote to me saying that she was so influenced by the book that she has decided to pursue Community Medicine for her post graduation speciality and thereafter work towards making a difference to the lives of the marginalised humanity. I felt vindicated knowing that i had influenced at least one life towards making a difference. The first ripple in the pond!

A Fistful of My Sky, has attained yet another milestone in the fact that now more and more ‘haves’ of high society have become aware of the ‘have nots’ living in the forgotten heartlands of our country. People are waking up to their plight and are coming forward to help.

A Fistful of My Sky, has certainly awakened the soul of society and, sooner or later, like the ripples on the pond, the impact will spread far and wide.

Read more about Dr Gokani

To explore more such author stories

A New Chapter: From Studio Walls to Storybook Pages – ZorbaBooks

Mystical Experiences: A Writer’s Journey I Zorba Books