Start of a New Journey – CV Sastry

My journey behind writing this book was fuelled by my nephew’s own “sacred thread” ceremony. I wanted to gift him a book that he would find interesting. Where he could read stories and mantras for Sandhya Vandanam and practice them every day, with my first book.

When people acknowledge you for what you are doing, it’s an uplifting feeling. After publishing that started happening to me. Since the start of my publishing journey, people- friends, relatives, and even strangers started congratulating me for taking the plunge. They were thrilled to read my book – Rituals & Practices of Hinduism, as it opened their eyes to many aspects of the Hindu ceremonies and rituals and the deep meanings they contained. They enjoyed reading the slim book with plenty of illustrations and stylistic images too (this photo is infront of a stylistic image i created for this book.. To top it all I recently met a friend who pointed out that my book has been used as a reference on Wikipedia! You can imagine the joy I felt.

Zorba Books Author
Gifting the book to my nephew on his janeu ceremony/Upanayana/Sacred thread ceremony

I have always been fascinated by Hinduism and the profound teachings of the Vedas, which were available for the entire humankind to use. Through the length and breadth of my travels during my childhood to different parts of India, I witnessed some regional differences in the teachings and understanding of Hinduism. But I also realized that the traditions, the rituals, and the story of Hinduism all lead to one underlying principle – to make the world a better place to live in. I was also saddened that a lot of our knowledge, information, and traditional books were lost over the centuries and most books widely read on Hinduism are by western authors.

Since this was my first book-writing experience, I would like to thank Zorba Books for supporting me in this adventure.

I am also looking forward to publishing my second book which is already halfway done and in the future to writing more about our rich culture and traditions – both in non-fiction and fiction genres.

Thanks for your support.

Namaskaram, CV Sastry.

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