Love in times of social media

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Two years ago, Sudeep Nagarkar, a Mumbai-based engineer, was struggling to have his first book published. In 2011, when the book — A Few Things Left Unsaid, based on Sudeep’s college romance and subsequent break-up, was finally published, it became an immediate bestseller.

The tale of young love resonated with many readers, and even as they clamoured for more of Sudeep’s direct, conversational style of writing, the author obliged. That’s the Way We Met (a sequel to Few Things…) was published in 2012, and his third book, It Started With a Friend Request, was recently launched by Random House India.
Despite the prolific output — three books in as many years, Sudeep says he isn’t a very disciplined writer. “I am very lazy and do not follow any specific schedule,” he admits. “I write stories inspired by real life incidents, so it doesn’t take me years to write (a book). Once I start, I can actually finish writing before my self-imposed deadline. It’s just that someone needs to push me to do it. Fortunately, I have a gang of friends who motivate me whenever I’m feeling down.”
It is two among these very friends who have inspired Sudeep’s new novel. Akash and Aleesha meet, exchange their BlackBerry pins, and romance blossoms — until of course, misfortune strikes. Sudeep says that writing about someone else’s experiences, even when those people were his close friends, was different from penning his own. “Writing your own story is much easier. (When writing about friends) you feel this constant pressure about the outcome because you want the best for your friend. That pressure made me realise that this book needs to be better than the last one as the people it is based on, are so dear to me,” says Sudeep.
In writing about oneself, Sudeep adds, there is less scope for conflicts. “I would fight every day with Akash and Aleesha about some incident or the other that they wanted to be deleted or included in the book!” he recounts. “I’m glad that I won the argument every time! There was one particular incident, where Akash and I visit the girls’ hostel where Aleesha stays. Akash fought with me for an entire week asking me to exclude this from the book as he hadn’t told his mom about it. But I convinced him to let me keep it, and readers seem to be loving it.”
Modern communication — as the book’s title suggests — plays a huge role in the romance between the protagonists of It Started With A Friend Request. Sudeep says that more than a plot device, this was a reflection of social reality. “Seven out of 10 relationships these days begin with a friend request,” claims Sudeep. “This book is not particularly about Facebook or Twitter, but yes, social media, BlackBerry Messenger, What’s App have become part of our daily lives these days. I hardly see anyone who is not using at least one of these mediums to communicate with their friends.” But while the way we communicate may have changed, the “language of love hasn’t”, the author asserts. “We still expect care, love and respect from our partner,” he points out.
Love remains an important theme in all three of Sudeep’s stories, and he says that “reliving the tender moments we miss out on in our day-to-day lives by reading a book can be a heavenly experience”. Writing about his own love story and break-up, he tells us, helped him overcome his depression and lead a normal life again. Now, this engineer-turned-writer is pursuing a degree in management and dreams of starting up a firm someday. In the meantime, he is happy that he has a job that lets him “sleep late and wake up late”.
Sudeep, who counts Nicholas Sparks among the authors he admires, says there’s a lot that readers can take away from his latest book. “There is something in it for everybody, various life lessons,” he says. “It talks about never taking a loved one for granted, and the importance of having a close friend,” he signs off.