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Cracking the hate code

speaks to Lieutenant Colonel Manveet Singh who has just come up with his debut thriller, "Dubious Tactics", with a rather interesting pen name - Guru Kay

Different people become writers for different reasons. Some have the urgency to narrate a true tale; some have a vivid imagination to make a fiction look real; and then there are some who get so inspired by their favourite authors that they pick the pen too. But on being asked, a first time writer, Lieutenant Colonel Manveet Singh says so casually with a laugh, "I became an author because my wife has pushed me to become one." Well, interesting, isn't it? And what's more is, having just come out with a thriller, "Dubious Tactics - Missions Of Hate", a Srishti publication, Manveet has also thought out an interesting pen name for himself - Guru Kay!

"Well, I thought and thought and finally came up with this one. After the book, a lot of people have started calling me by that name," beams this New Delhi-based serving commissioned officer of the Indian Army. At an age when anyone and everyone are rolling out a book under their name, you obviously ask Manveet the need to have a pen name.

"I thought it would be a good idea to have a pen name for a thriller," he says. Much impressed by the works of pulp fiction writers like Jeffery Archer, Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins and company, Manveet says, the decision to write a thriller was easy. And being posted as an Army man in strategic places like Kashmir and the North East, choosing the subject matter of terrorism for his debut book was easier, he adds.

"I guess an author's experience dictates his thoughts, but to an extent. At many places, I have led my imagination work but have also tried to be as realistic as possible because a thriller has to be convincing enough," he states.

The basic storyline is not any different from a Bollywood film treating terrorism but yes, in its treatment and the choice of language and clipped sentences, Manveet has come out a clear winner.

And having done it, he says, he is already into his second book. "But I am not ready to discuss it yet," he says. Will it also be a novel?

"Well, it has to be because I can't write anything less than a novel," he sums up with yet another smile.

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