“You don’t need to look outward in search of happiness. All of us have it within ourselves,” says Nilakshi Borgohain, a city-based homemaker-turned-author, whose latest book ‘Waltz in Happiness’ was released by Delhi chief minister Shiela Dikshit recently.
Family is the priority for the three-book-old writer, who took to the profession along with her household chores.
“I don’t wish to be as popular as Amitav Ghosh (who visited the city on Saturday). I am content to be able to spend time with my family,” said Borgohain, who left her journalism career around two decades ago.
The mother of two spends only two hours daily on writing, which became her passion ever since her first poem ‘Magic’ was published in a weekly in Guwahati in the 1970s.
“I took a long break after I had kids in the 1990s. I consider writing like a prayer, but my kids are the most important to me,” she said, adding that weekends are reserved for the family. This is the reason she took around 11 months to complete her latest novel. “We go for lunch on Sundays, barring this one as my son is in town and will go back to Chennai in two days where he is pursuing engineering.”
Like most women authors, she started her career by writing women-centric book like ‘Streets of Fear’, a collection of short stories. “Later, I realised that I should focus more on human issues. In ‘Waltz in Happiness’, even my protagonist is a man in his 30s,” she adds.
{{/usCountry}}Like most women authors, she started her career by writing women-centric book like ‘Streets of Fear’, a collection of short stories. “Later, I realised that I should focus more on human issues. In ‘Waltz in Happiness’, even my protagonist is a man in his 30s,” she adds.
{{/usCountry}}Borgohain has been staying in Gurgaon for the past seven years. “This city has grown tremendously and I love it. It even finds a mention in my novel,” she says. The author is also planning to write her next book. “A lot of thoughts have occupied my mind but I haven’t been able to make up my mind so far.”