 I'm an author. That is one of my identities, but till around six months back, I carried another identity, that of a banker. I was one of those traditional MBA suited booted, jargon spewing finance types. I was actually one of those people that the Occupy Wall Street protesters would actually be protesting against. It's been a long and strange journey from finance to writing fiction. Some of you might say long, yeah, okay, but why strange? Well, there are various reasons for it. So if you'll allow me. The first reason is, for example, my books are historical. They are set in the India of 4,000 years ago. The strange part is that I didn't study history formally at all ever. I actually graduated in mathematics. I was a masochist. I studied mathematics. The second strange part is that my books are fiction. I write fiction books. But before my first book, which was released last year, the Immortals of Meluha, before that, I'd written absolutely no fiction ever in my life. Norian a short story in school, absolutely nothing, except for some really, really terrible poetry which nobody really liked. That was in my college days. The only one who liked my poetry was my girlfriend. And that was one of the reasons that I actually married her. The third strange part is that I've written on the adventures of the Hindu God Lord Shiva. My books are based on a premise that Lord Shiva was a real historical man who lived 4,000 years ago. And his grand adventures gave rise to the myth of the God. So, well, I've written on a Hindu God. But I was an atheist till eight, nine years ago. And today, of course, I'm a very devoted Shiva worshipper. But till eight, nine years ago, I was a committed atheist. I was one of those guys who refused to enter temples. It's been a really long and strange journey. So how did it happen? How did someone like me, a maths graduate, an atheist maths graduate with a complete lack of imagination actually end up writing fiction books on a God? Well, I have a theory. I believe that my books are a blessing. And my soul prepared me to receive that blessing over decades and frankly without my conscious knowledge. How did this happen? Let's talk about history. From as long as I can remember, when I was young, I was obsessed with history. Why? I don't know. I was just obsessed with history. Now, I'm a pragmatic guy. You know the banker profile, right? So I'm a pragmatic guy. I know that, look, being a historian is not really a wise career option. It doesn't really add up to a good savings account. It's not going to afford a good lifestyle. So I did the logical, practical thing. I did an MBA and I joined the exciting world of banking. But life doesn't always have to be an either-or. You can actually find time to chase a passion, despite having a job, provided you feel strongly enough for that passion. So I continued to voraciously read history books, not because it would help me in my career or help me get grades, but for the simple reason that I was happy with a history book in my hand. I think about writing. And idea occurred to me around eight, nine years ago to write a book. And my family got after me that, dude, this sounds nice. Write it down. And I felt compelled to listen to them. Not because I'm one of those goody-to-shoes guys who always does what his family tells him to do, not for that reason. The real reason was that I felt deeply unhappy inside if I wasn't working on my book. I did have a high-pressure job at that point of time. I was working in banking. We were busy destroying the world. It takes a lot of time, right? And it took loads of time, right? I simply didn't have the time to write a book. So I, being pragmatic, I did the logical thing. I stopped every time-wasting activity that I used to do. I restricted my life to only three things. My job, my family, and writing my books. I stopped doing everything else, watching TV, partying, even exercising. You can see the results of it. I even stopped exercising and I put aside all time-wasting activities. I still wasn't finding enough time to write. I was just, you know, writing on Sundays. And my wife, you know, she got a good insight that she said, look, you're wasting two, three hours every day on your office commute. You know, you're driving to office and back. Mumbai has a lot of traffic, right? So she said, hire a driver. And that was probably, and this was six years ago, drivers were cheaper then. That was probably one of the best 5,000 rupees per month that I ever invested, right? So I started writing the book on the back seat of my car and took me a good four or five years and the book just emerged. Whenever I tried to control the story, the book would slow down. Whenever I surrendered and just let my soul take over, the book would start flowing in a flood. It was almost like if I approached the book with the humility of a witness, the book would come. If I ever approached it with the arrogance of a creator, it would stop. And the book was written, right? Now, I've been told that there are actually some authors out here. So it might appear to the non-authors that if the book has been written, the journey is over. I should not buy a long shot, okay? You still have to get it published, okay? Which is an entire story by itself. Now, so I went around, I went around to some Indian publishers and I was told that apparently Indian publishing is the most fractious place in the world, okay? If you put 11 publishers in one room, you'll probably get 12 opinions, right? But on my book, there was rare unanimity. Every single person that my book was sent to rejected it, okay? I actually stopped counting after 20, right? I said, look, this is not going anywhere. A few of them were kind enough to talk to me about it. Why were they rejecting my book? So one of them told me that, dude, it looks like you actually want to alienate every single reader segment. I said, okay, how? He said, look, you're writing on religious philosophies which the youth aren't really interested in, apparently. You've got your own take on religion. You're taking some liberties with a conventional view of religion which means that the older religious people will not like it and you're insisting on writing in modern, easy English which means that the literati will not like it. So who in God's name are you planning to sell to? I said, look, I mean, I didn't do a market research and write the book. I just wrote the book. So, but yeah, but net net, it was rejected by everyone. So my wife, this lovely supportive woman, she was just, I think she was just so stunned that a creatively challenged person like me had actually written a book that she really wanted to support it in every way possible. So she told me that we're going to cut back on some expenses if need be but we're going to publish the book by ourselves. Even if it means that we're going to print the book and distribute it free of cost to our families and to our family and our friends, we're going to do it. I said, okay, great man, thanks. But to my surprise, actually my agent, my long-suffering agent who had been sending the book to every publisher and having the door slammed on his face, he actually told me, look, I believe in your book, so I want to invest in the printing and he asked me, would you invest in marketing? I said, yeah, sure man, okay. And so through this providential partnership, my book was launched in March of last year, my first book, The Immortal of Mellua and I had absolutely no expectations. Much to my surprise, the book actually hit the best seller charts in the first week of its launch. So what's the point of my speech? What am I trying to get across? Is it that if you follow your soul's advice, you will certainly find success? Actually that point has been made by many people, people far wiser than me in language, far more beautiful than my own. My point is entirely different. My point is that if you listen to your soul's advice and you discover your life's purpose, success or failure actually ceases to matter. And that is the wonderful place that I got into. If you think about my career in banking, if someone had told me that look, you'll have to give up all your trappings of success, okay? No glass walled cabin, no bonuses, no salaries, no personal assistant, no senior management rank. If I didn't have any of this, would I actually be unhappy in my banking career? The honest answer is yes, I would be. Success was a prerequisite for me to like my banking career. There were times in my career and in banking where I didn't get the promotion that I thought I deserved. I thought that the bonus that I got was less than what I should have got. And at those times it wasn't just my motivation that fell, but even my personal happiness. But in my writing career, the story is completely different, right? If someone told me that your books would be superflops, that the Immortals of Melua and the Secret of the Nagas would not sell 375,000 copies, it would sell only 25 copies. Would I still be happy? The honest answer is yes. Success or failure was irrelevant in my loving my writing career. Even when my book was being rejected by every publisher, Left, Right and Center, not for a moment did I think that I'd wasted my time in writing this book. Even when I was 100% sure that my book would never get commercially published, I'd only started writing my second book. I know for sure that if my books had flopped, I'd probably still be working in banking. The Occupy Wall Street protesters would probably still be protesting against me. But I would also continue to write. Even if my books remained only in my laptop, even if the only person reading my books was my long-suffering wife, I would still continue to write. And that is actually a wonderful place to be where the journey itself becomes a thing of joy and the destination doesn't matter. My mother, a brilliant woman, she actually told me in my younger days that if you find yourself in a place where your work itself gives you pleasure, where failure doesn't fill your heart with sadness and success doesn't fill your mind with pride, then you know that you're working in consonance with your soul's purpose. I am in that wonderful place. Whenever I write my books or do anything associated with my books, there is a deep, profound and unrelenting happiness that I feel inside. And that, I think, is life's greatest blessing. And that blessing is available to every single one of us. All we have to do is listen to our soul's advice and find our life's true purpose. Thank you.