Literary awakening

Some prefer walking into the sunset,escaping the bustle and settling into carefully developed quiet.

These retired defence services professionals have translated their life experiences and interests into successful books

Some prefer walking into the sunset,escaping the bustle and settling into carefully developed quiet. Not these men. They lived lives dedicated to their service and now they are busy putting pen to paper and recounting their experiences,lessons learnt and observations made. Delhi-based 68-year-old Maj Gen (Retd) Shubhi Sood,has been indulging in writing and golf-playing since his retirement. He has authored four books so far,the earlier three being on Tibet (2005),on Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw (2006),to whom he was made ADC in 1968; and on Bhutan (2008). In this literary trajectory,a fourth book titled Tales of Soldiers Seers and Spirits,launched in March this year,may seem incongruous. But it isn’t. I was brought up as a believer. I just got a chance to experience things I believed in. The book is a compilation of experiences I have had and of stories I have heard from others, says Sood. One of the stories he happened to hear was of a ‘guru’ who claimed to have witnessed the cross-migration of the soul from one body to another. The book is sprinkled with such encounters,amalgamating stories about soldiers and spiritual occurrences. But Sood confesses to some fictional liberties. All in an effort to make it more readable, he chuckles. The book has been self-published by Sood through SDS Publishers.

Maj Gen (Retd) Virinder Uberoy fashioned a career out of consulting and training in corporates once his army career wrapped up. He set up USHUS Consultancy and Training in Bengaluru in 1998,which provides team-building mentoring and other services to corporate firms. Unsurprisingly,this interest flowed into his fifth and latest book too,titled Quest for Personality Development. The book presents a 22-year-old protagonist named Jayant,and though his experiences extols the virtues of self-assurance and confidence to achieve personal goals. See,personality development is potential development, says Uberoy. The book presents the topic in two contexts on personal development and on how to become a useful member of the society. Uberoy wrote the book when he felt the need to pass on the learning he has acquired over five and a half decades. The book is an effort to gain a larger audience, he says. The 230 odd pages in the book carry words as well as small tables and charts to drive home the message. Youngsters today do not have the time to read through so much. So I decided to write something between a fictional story and a textbook,and introduce a character as close to their lives as possible.

The name of Pune-based Col (Retd) Vinay B Dalvi too entered book shelves when he authored a book called Role Model A key to character development in 2010. He has squeezed his 37 years of defense service experience into the pages,to speak about the importance of personality development and moral value building amongst today’s youth. Dalvi also aims to raise more awareness about the Armed Forces and the benefits of living the disciplined life. The book has garnered much praise for its content and writing style,but Dalvi admits that the writing doesn’t always start once retirement dawns. I had been writing even when I was serving. But it’s only after retirement that we get more encouraged to publish.

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