We first see the Patronus in J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'.
It is magical, a trained wizard conjuring a mist-like shield to ward off the Dementors, dark entities that feed upon happiness. Except it really isn't magic, is it?

Consider what Lupin tells Harry while explaining how to make his patronus.

"With an incantation, which will work only if you are concentrating, with all your might, on a single, very happy memory."


That incantation, of course, is Expecto Patronum. But there is so much more to it than those two words, isn't there? For me, this is such a wonderful allegory of something so simple yet so hard to master. And yet so many have missed the beauty of what the Patronus represents.

YEAR 12
  Godyears, this blog, turns 12 at the end of this month. Statistically, the numbers sound good with the blog reaching over 14 lakh views. But the truth is rarely about numbers alone, is it? It has been a tough year both personally and professionally. There were a lot of unexpected twists that sprung up and painful decisions made. Reliving them brings me no joy.

Most of the happy memories of the last year, the ones that got me through the year, were via the world that many still tell me (12 years after I joined) is a passing fancy, the blogosphere.

The moments I truly cherished this year?

I finally got published in Huffington Post. 

It is a 'bucket list' moment to see your name lodged between a Prime Minister and a US Presidential candidate.

More satisfyingly perhaps, I stuck to what I do best at the blog in my published articles as well - writing on multiple genres.
1) My first article was on Violence against Doctors in India and a multi-pronged solution to it.
2) Two weeks later, on Valentine's Day, I wrote on a love story you have all read about in the comics section of your newspaper without even realizing it.
3) My third article was on suicide prevention, a topic dear to me.
4) And my fourth and final topic (for now) was published on World Anaesthesia Day, celebrating my profession and was placed at the top of the Huffington Post page that day.

   

A Panelist at Aegis, Hyderabad

I was invited to be a panelist for a debate at AEGIS, a national medical conference in Hyderabad, a first for me. The topic dealt with the 'role of technology in teaching medicine for doctors in India'.

I would never have been considered for this as a doctor alone, sitting anonymously inside an operation theater. Being a blogger and someone who uses technology to reach out to a larger audience made the difference.

Featured in the Doctors Day Special of Manorama Arogyam

There was a three page article featuring me in this year's Doctors Day Special of the popular state health Magazine, Manorama Arogyam.



It was, of course, related to the viral post from last year where I ended up in the news for my detailed post explaining why I would never allow my child to be a doctor in India.

For years, I have been fighting to get people to listen to the woes of the young Indian doctor and open their eyes to the dismal conditions we are forced to work in with terrible odds against them. Who would have thought reverse psychology would do the trick?



The article got me lots of positive comments from doctors in Kerala, happy that there was a voice defending them albeit in such an obtuse way.

Write India

I recently spoke about winning Write India, India's largest literary competition ever, and what a wonderful book launch we had in Mumbai. It remains one of the best moments of my life.


In my muddled acceptance speech, I did thank a thousand faceless people - everyone who had kept encouraging me in the blog over the last decade with their comments. Without their brickbats and bouquets, I would not have kept trying to do better with the next attempt at fiction... I would not have won.

In real life, darkness often lies within us in the pain and sorrow of despair and depression. In J K Rowling's world of muggles, wizards and fantastic creatures, this darkness attains a foreboding but real physical form as the Dementors. And luckily for us, she shows us how to defeat them. Her concept of the Patronus is a shield we create by ourselves, warding off the darkness surrounding us by focusing on our happiest memories.

Harry Potter thinks of his parents. Snape thinks of the woman he loved. The memory differs but the strength to ward off despair using a happy memory holds true for them both. And Rowling does showcase how difficult it is to manifest your Patronus, especially when confronted by a Dementor.

Years ago, I had talked about the concept of making a list of your good memories and holding on to it to read during tough times. I do that even today, saving the supportive comments of readers and friends alike. And when I feel it is hard to continue, I return back to those comments I have saved separately.

The common thread binding all the above cherished memories of mine this year are not my words...but the support and comments I got. And that's what I turned to this year when my Dementors came for me.



My patronus, in the end, is words. Not my own but the kind words of others.

My sincere advice to you - learn to identify and Conjure your patronus.
Think carefully of the memories that make you happy. Save them, not just in your mind but also in an actual physical form, accessible to you instantly via online drives or your own laptop and mobile devices.

They will remind you of how cherished and valuable you are when your dementors come and you cannot think straight.
They will help you get through the darkness and back into the light.

Authors note:

Linking this post to #ThankfulThursdays, #WeekendBlogShare & #GratitudeCircle

The extraordinary year long literary journey that began in India in 2015 is over.  
Write India Stories is now available online on Amazon as well as Flipkart.

Write India started off as an idea, the root of which was the belief that there is no shortage of literary talent in India. Readers and authors across the world acknowledge the skill required to bring beauty to prose within a caged word-limit. The difficulty invariably is in selling a product with unknown faces, irrespective of their talent.

That is where the Times Group stepped up with an initiative unlike any seen before in the Indian literature industry.

 

The Initiative

For the first time ever, 11 of India's bestselling fiction authors got together to be guides and judges for this huge event. Every month, one of the eleven authors would give out a paragraph as a prompt and ask the people of India to draw inspiration from that paragraph and write a short story.


Can you imagine what that entails? 11 months of entries pouring in from all over the country with no restriction of age or any other bar; your talent was the only criteria. 11 authors who had sold more than 16 million books between them judged the entries for their individual months, whittling the number down from a few thousands to 3, including a winner for their month. 11 winners.



It would be pedestrian of me to blandly jot down the events of the book launch. I think it is far better to share with you snippets and visuals from the weekend that was for the winners of Write India Season 1.

The literary workshop

With all of us flown in from different parts of the country to Mumbai, our weekend began with the promised literary workshop at the Times of India office. Following a warm welcome and introduction by Vinita Nangia (Associate editor of The Times of India & the director of Write India), we were left in the able hands of Dipankar Mukherjee (founder of Readomania).

Dipankar helped us deconstruct the very art of storytelling, showing us the layers that go into the process and engaging us with many an interactive creative session so that we understood the nuances. And trust me, I do mean interactive creative sessions. If you have any doubts, you can ask the other winners about my quickly cooked-up mystery of 'a Thailand prostitute who wakes up on top of the Himalayas'!



Madhuri Banerjee (author of the bestselling 'Losing My Virginity and Other Dumb Ideas' in addition to being a film writer, a columnist and presently in the television industry) was her vivacious self as she peppered her session on character development with plenty of examples, showing us how to flesh out our protagonists better.


Mahendra Jakhar (author, screenplay writer for Manjhi & Shagird) went the cavalier route, asking us to think outside the box instead of colouring within the expected lines of our story's genre.

The icing on the cake was a wonderful session with best-selling author Ravi Subramanian. Honest, self-effacing and polite-to-a-fault, he regaled us with many a tale of the industry (and various author) secrets. We literally turned off the video camera at least half a dozen times just to get these juicy details from him!  
 

The Book Launch Venue: St Regis, Mumbai

Meeting the authors you have loved reading

The Camaraderie between the Authors

The stories behind the story seeking out stories from across the country

• We got to hear of Vinita's resolve to fight for the 'short story' and bring it back into the limelight, proving wrong the naysayers in the publishing industry who felt the genre was dying. 
• Ashwin Sanghi had the audience in splits as he told us his secret to being a good fiction writer - being a good liar as a child!
• Ravi Subramanian had to explain to us all why he chose a prompt of infidelity when he was a judge. His answer? Mid-life crisis!
  
•  There were some interesting observations too. The oldest entry for the contest came from a 90 year old man and it was a tale of second chances and looking back. 
• The youngest winner, Prapti Panda was 14 years when she wrote such an amazingly mature tale on infidelity.
• You can watch the live streaming of the unveiling of the book here at TOI Books.
• After the felicitation by the authors, Nainesh's winning story 'Palwasha's Revenge' was portrayed on stage in a brilliant one-woman play by Swati Das. Gut-wrenching, harrowing and yet uplifting, it left us all stunned.  

Being Winners of the First Season of Write India

 

Why Write India stands out from other anthologies 

(and why I hope you will be inspired to win the next Season)

To say that the Write India event was unlike any other writing contest ever held in India sounds like a blatant exaggeration but consider the facts.

• When has there ever been a year long short story contest held in India, featuring 11 National best selling authors as judges?
• When was the last time you had 11 authors who together have written millions of words and sold over 13 million copies of their books, flying down from different parts of the country and applauding you for your 2500 words of prose? This does not happen even for book launches of full fledged novels.
• When has a short story book launch received this kind of fanfare and publicity with support from a globally recognizable media house? 

Online Buzz:

Till date, there have been articles on the book launch at:

• Femina,  
• Business Standard  
• Times of India ( including separate posts on the literary workshop and one exclusively for the winners too) 
• Sify 
• Best Media Info

• I have been lucky enough to be a part of more than a dozen short story collections prior to this, including anthologies from the top 3 publishing houses of the country. I have attended 3 book launches in 3 different major cities as a co-author over the years. So trust me when I tell you this, no short story collection in India has received the kind of media attention and grandeur that greeted us at the starry St Regis.

Keep an eye out. Season 2 is coming. I know some of the shortlisted judges but won't be telling you until the official announcements. Trust me, your skills are going to be put to the test. But then, the reward is worth it.

In the end, the simple fact is that you are never - I repeat, never - going to get an opportunity like this in your lifetime. This is the American Idol & Masterchef Australia of the Indian writing universe. One single short story can catapult you into the limelight.

Write India Stories - The Book

Understand the scale of this event. The 2016 edition of the coveted Commonwealth short story contest had 4000 entries sent in over 2 months from 5 continents. In comparison, Write India was a contest that lasted an entire year. You had a chance to write 11 times over the year. And in the end, a colossal 25,000 entries came in. 

The final product consists of the best 36 stories curated from this list of 25,000 stories. Meticulous editing and attention to detail has been the key, delaying the launch until everything was in place.



In the book, you get to see the original passage by the judge before turning the page and finding out how the top 3 entries took the prompt forward in their own unique styles. The very same prompt that elicited a poignant tale in one author brought out an energizing thriller in another. This is not 'just another short story' collection.

Only the top 0.1 % made it into the book.  Think of that.

I hope you do participate. And I hope you win. Because winning this will open publishing doors for you that no other short story you ever write could.

What a brilliant post it was Doc. @Deepagandhi1 and I loved the post. pic.twitter.com/LRduOzcV3C

— Jaibala Rao (@JaibalaRao) November 13, 2016

Dear Life,
We really have seen it all, have we not?

The 90's came and went and as my turbulent teens came to pass, I thought we had it all figured out, our first love appearing before our eyes every time we tried to focus on the geography and biology within our texts as our audio cassettes of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge serenaded us. Awaiting my turn in the Ferris-wheel of destiny so that I could reach the top, I knew I was going to conquer the world... I just could not grow up fast enough.

The new century brought with it its own hoops and trapdoors. Studying in a hospital exposed to me to all the things that you  slyly chose not to tell me - saving lives and losing them; the joy of love and the scar of a broken heart, hours of endless nights studying bearing fruition and yes, even the pain of failing. And while I hated you for failing me without preparing me for the lesson, I am glad too because it gave me the chance to be a lighthouse later on, did it not, helping others so that they do not fail where I did.



I am flawed because of you, life. And it makes for a funny conundrum, does it not? If my 15 year old self were to see me now two decades later, would he be proud of the direction we have walked? I know he would be shocked by some of the scars we have suffered and how far we are from what he envisioned of us... but I also know that he would be proud of all that I have achieved.

I became what I set out to be, a specialist doctor. Me, whose Pac-Man kept dying at Round 3, now resuscitates hearts that have stopped beating.
I still follow my passion, writing short stories.
I still smile at strangers and hold the door open to allow others to pass.
I have held on to friends who matter and made new lasting ones in a world where people are often alone in a crowd.
And yes, when meeting strangers, I do tend to gravitate towards the pets more than their owners but I think 15 year old me always knew I was going to do that!

Yes, the goalposts have changed, my dreams have evolved and the journey will undoubtedly have many a twist waiting for me... but I am ready now. At 15, I was sure of what my life would be. I knew exactly what I wanted. At 35, I find I am far less certain and cannot even decide a pizza topping without weighing the pros and cons for half an hour. And it is okay.

Because that was the first lesson I had to learn the hard way, was it not? That life is not all about conquering the world and winning, is it?



It is about the journey; the memories we create and the life lessons we hold on, the pain that feels like a burning coal until we let go of it and hope that refuels us.

But above all, I have not given up, life.
I still believe - in spite of everything - in the good that exists within people. That, in the darkness, even a single candle can light the lives of hundreds. And if no one else is willing to, then even someone like me - unknown, insignificant me - can be that candle for others.
  
Thank you for the scars and the hugs. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the lessons you silently allowed me to learn the hard way.
I know you have a lot still in store for me #DearZindagi and guess what? I am looking forward to it.

Sincerely
Dr Roshan

Authors note:
I am writing a letter to life for the #DearZindagi activity at BlogAdda

Unniappams are an extremely yummy sweet snack that every Keralite swears by. The traditional Unniappam aka Unniyyappam aka Neyyappam is a deep fried, sweet rice dish that usually incorporates banana, jaggery and ghee in it. Like Lays and Pringle chips or prawns, no one can eat just one (at least, that has been my policy so far in life!)


 


As always, we decided to do a twist on the traditional so out went the banana and jaggery. Instead, we decided to make a sweet Tender Coconut Unniappam that is actually easier to prepare and tastes really good too.

Unniappam, Æbleskiver, Poffertje & Takoyaki

Now, before we go hunting for the ingredients, we need to get you *drum roll* the Appa Karal.
The Appa Karal is the characteristic cast-iron pans with multiple half-spherical moulds into which the Unniappam batter is poured for frying. And it is this unique mould that links the humble Kerala Unniappam to Denmark, Holland and even Japanese octopuses!

INGREDIENTS:

• Raw rice soaked             -  1 and a 1/2 cups
• Tender coconut               -  1, scoop the flesh inside
• Tender coconut water     -  1/2 cup
• Sugar                              -  10 tablespoons
• Soda bicarbonate            -  1/4 teaspoon
• Oil for frying

RECIPE:

• Grind the soaked rice, flesh of tender coconut, its water and sugar well.
• To the batter, add the soda bicarbonate and mix well.
• Allow this batter to ferment for at least half an hour.
• Heat the appa karal / mould and grease it with oil.
• When heated, pour in each mould a tablespoon of the batter and fry on both sides till golden brown.
• Remove, drain the excess oil and serve.

 

Click the image to convert it to its full size and download the recipe

 Additional Notes

• Use a fork or toothpick to rotate the cooked snacks within the mould so that both sides get browned evenly.
• The Unniappam has a moderate shelf-life so it is best to have them within the first 48 hours after preparation. Refrigerating will increase the shelf-life and you can steam them before serving again.

I personally associate Unniappams with the old Malayalam hit film Yodha where Mohanlal - robbed & clueless in Nepal - befriends a young boy, offering him the only belongings he has with him, homemade Unniappams from Kerala. Since both don't speak the other's language, Mohanlal nicknames him Unni kuttan, because the boy's clean shaven head resembles that of an Unniappam for him.