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Once Upon the Tracks of Mumbai #atozchallenge

The A to Z April Blogging Challenge 2013   has been a blast so far, and I’ve made a host of new friends! I’m co-hosting it on Amlokiblogs, so drop me a comment there if you have something to say about the challenge itself. On this blog, I’ve been featuring mostly indie-published book excerpts for all of April. I love reading, and supporting author-friends, and this is a good way to do both.

Today, for O, I give you a romantic novel: Once Upon the Tracks of Mumbai by Rishi Vohra.

Once Upon a Time in Mumbai

Once Upon a Time in Mumbai

Elevator Pitch: The novel shows us the world through 24-year-old ‘autistic’, ‘psychotic’ Babloo’s eyes. Vandana is the only one who sees him differently, and inspires his journey through a series of twists and turns that change his life forever.

Excerpt: I awoke again to a metallic sound.  It was broad daylight.  The bed next to me was empty.  I got out of bed and looked out the window, searching for the familiarity of the railway tracks.  But it had been replaced by a manicured green lawn.  I looked around the room and saw that the old, peeling walls of my room had been replaced by neatly painted, light green walls.  The dusty, brown tiles has been replaced by smooth, clean, white ones.

The metallic sound was the morning bell.  And it rang every morning to wake us up and start us on our daily routine.
 
In an instant, it all came back to me.  In court, Barrister Lalwani had whispered to me that the only way out was to plead insanity.  He said that I would be able to get away with a few years’ sentence in a mental asylum, which was much better than a harsh prison term.  I had agreed only because I wanted to go back home faster.  That was almost a year ago.
 
When I first came here, I was scared.  I had seen many films which showed mental asylums.  The thought of living among crazy people scared me and I felt that I had made a mistake by coming here and should have gone to jail instead.
 
However, over the months I realized that these people were not crazy but victims of circumstances just like me.  They were not boring like the people outside.  They all had a history, something that made them interesting.
 
 Buy the book on Amazon, Flipkart, Homeshop
Reviewers have called this book an engaging read, and this is Vohra’s debut novel. Would like to explore the sights and sounds of Mumbai through Babloo’s eyes?
Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

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