The Story behind Yours Legally

The story behind Yours Legally:

As far as my memory takes me back to my childhood, all I can remember is my intense love for writing. The idea of writing a book, my book, is a seed I was nurturing ever since I was a fifth standard student. Though I was extremely fond of academics, yet it was writing which brought me immense happiness and fulfillment which infact could not be expressed in words. I still remember the first time, my first articles, two hindi poems, “Fir Aya Basant” and “Pareeksha ke ek din pehle” which featured in the same annual edition of our school magazine “New Horizons”. It elated me immensely. Seeing my name out there thrilled me, more than that, creating something using words and my imagination brought me utmost satisfaction. While I continued to pursue my higher education, my dream of becoming an author remained at the back of my mind always.

However, it was after I pursued law from Delhi University between 2007-2010 and thereafter landed a job at  Miniratna PSU in New Delhi in its legal team that I somehow finally got the idea for my first book.

It may infact sound bizarre but the first draft of my debut  book  Yours Legally which was recently published in 2019 by Becomeshakespeare was actually written way back in the year 2012, yes, six long years ago and believe me it’s the hard truth. I had shared my manuscript with many publishing companies earlier only to receive rejections or no responses. And trust me, waiting for even a simple response be it a rejection, is the toughest thing to do for any budding author.

It’s perhaps the same as auditioning for several roles and waiting for the right script to come your way. In this case, the script was ready but the producer and director were awaited. Receiving no response did dampen my spirits for a long time and I put aside this draft to rework on it later. But it never dampened my spirit to write and I continued to hone it by maintaining my blog over the past few years. 

Returning to the story behind this story, the first draft was written, sent to many publishers, and on receiving no response continued to stay in my PC and hard drive for well, a really long while.   Meanwhile, life is what happens when you are busy making other plans and marriage, change of jobs, moving to another city and then having a kid made me fully occupied in the daily grind and routine like everyone else.

But deep inside, the desire to get my book published and see my name on the cover of my own creation was simply not leaving my thoughts. And it seems the wait of past six years finally paid off. Just while I was busy playing mommy to my five month old son, recently one fine afternoon in Dec 2018, while I was checking my personal email, awaiting some documents from my hubby, an email got my particular attention.

It was a mail from a certain Leadstart Publishing which seemed completely out of the blue. Amidst the spam mails and endless promotional emails which kept filling my inbox each day, I read “Legally Yours” (the then working title) as the subject of the mail which surprised me in an eccentric way. With wide eyes, I opened the mail only to be shocked on reading that they had responded to the draft I had sent six years ago. To be very honest it took me a while to recall and realize what had I written so long back and how on earth was it being talked about now.

The contents of the mail brought a wide grin on my face as I was informed that I am now eligible for Wordit Art Fund, their sister concern which is assisting budding writers in getting their books published without going through the cumbersome process of traditional booksellers and without the authors having to make a hefty investment. The fact that they were giving such opportunities to new authors and I was one among them, my happiness knew no bounds.

As advised in the email therein, I approached Ms Pooja Dutt from Wordit Art Fund and the rest as they say is history….

To tell you the truth, little did I know then that my stint with law school followed by working in the legal profession would be the perfect ingredients for my debut book. Talking about Yours Legally, the 6 stories therein are a by product of certain incidents  and experiences witnessed by me during my diverse experiences in the legal system as each one of them affected me and impacted me in some way and taught me something about life as well. 

This book is a tad different, as all the six stories herein have one common protagonist Sia, and one common thread which binds them all i.e. Law. 

Each story revolves around one of the 6 elements which I feel are critical to this profession, the elements being; the Case, the Court (Judge),  the Counsel, the Complainant, the Confinement and the Criminal (defendant or accused).

While the first three stories are based on the elements of The Complainant, The Court and The Case and are court room dramas with a dash of satire, the fourth story is based on the element “The Counsel” and is dedicated to a lawyer whom I personally had the experience of working with.

The last two stories are based on the elements of The Confinement and The Criminal and are the protagonist’s eccentric but memorable experiences of visiting an Indian Prison. It is for all those who have only imagined how a prison is, seen in movies or heard from friends and have never ever seen in reality. Inspired by true incidents, the names of the prison and the accused have been withheld for obvious reasons.

I am truly glad that my book found an audience and in a span of one year itself, it has reached out to so many readers barring age, gender, profession etc. I am elated with the response I have got and thrilled for every review I read. I wish this book reaches out to not just those who are a part of the legal profession, but also the youth in particular who are trying to get back to the habit of reading, be it the e-way. 

Through this story I wish to just tell all of you that if you work hard towards your dream and your passions with utmost heart, dedication and commitment, they often come true…