Do you remember Rangoli on Doordarshan? Or giggling with friends over “Chapter 10” on reproduction in your school books? After delivering two blockbuster hits on romance with I Too Had a Love Story and Can Love Happen Twice?, and editing a collection of love stories, bestselling author Ravinder Singh has tapped into nostalgia for his third novel — Like It Happened Yesterday [Penguin, Rs 140]. In between his multi-city book launch tour, Ravin spoke to t2 about his new release, his new wife and why he can’t wait to come to Calcutta.

What exactly is Like It Happened Yesterday — a collection of memories, a novel…?

I have converted my memories into a shape that we can call a novel. The idea was that it should make readers travel into their own childhood, recollect their own school days, which is the best time of our lives. The novel starts from the first day in nursery and ends with the 12th standard board exam results. The timeline is confined between these two days, the time of growing up, living those funny, innocent moments, the fears and the tears. The protagonist comes from a very small town in Odisha, from where I hail.

How much of it is fact and how much fiction?

I would say 90 to 95 per cent is fact. You always need the 5 to 10 per cent fiction to give a book a nice feel and mood.

Share with us the first childhood memory that comes to your mind...

I am in Pune right now and it’s raining very heavily here. I can see most people wearing raincoats. The raincoats bring back the memory of how badly I wanted one when I was a kid. I came from a very poor family. I would keep telling my father how I hated umbrellas and wanted a raincoat like my friends, in bright red, green or blue. Back then a raincoat meant just one piece of plastic and he was worried about investing Rs 100 in something I might end up tearing.

Whenever my father would drop us to school on his bicycle on a rainy day, he would wrap my brother and me in towels. I used to hide myself since I felt embarrassed of what my classmates, especially the girls, would think. What I forgot was that they would anyway recognise my dad since he was such a huge figure on a bicycle (laughs)!

Growing up is quite similar for everyone, right from the first injection to first love... yet you chose to write on that. Why?

When I was in school, I found it boring, with homework and classes. I thought life would be more interesting in college, free of uniforms, hanging out with friends.... When I did go to engineering college, I felt things would be great when I started earning. But for the last 10 years, I have been earning my own living but am I in the best days of my life? No! With all good things have come responsibilities. The charm of getting a mere Rs 25 as pocket money and spending it is far greater than earning Rs 25,000. When I think about the next thing in life that I am going to be excited about, I realise there isn’t going to be any. I am just going to get older and responsibilities will grow bigger. So, I would love to relive those childhood days and this book gave me that opportunity.

l I Too Had a Love Story and Can Love Happen Twice? have sold more than 5 lakh copies. l Like It Happened Yesterday sold 2 lakh copies on the day of its release — June 15, 2013.

You got married last September. Tell us a bit about the woman who managed to steal your heart...

(Laughs) I don’t think Khushboo ever tried to do that, but it just happened like that. She had read my first book [I Too Had a Love Story] and connected with me on a social networking site, but she wasn’t really a die-hard fan. However, I replied to her messages and that was the initial connection. This was before I went for my MBA at the Indian School of Business [in 2011-12]. I was based in Chandigarh then.

Later, when I shifted to Gurgaon, I realised that this reader — Khushboo — worked in a company that was just next to mine! So the interaction resumed. My problem of coming from Chandigarh Infosys to a company in Gurgaon was that a meal that cost just Rs 30 in Chandigarh or Bhubaneswar cost around Rs 120 in Gurgaon. I found it difficult to accept that for every afternoon meal I had to shell out more than hundred bucks! That’s where Khushboo came in. One day I asked her to join me for lunch. Now, she used to get home-cooked food and I loved that fact right from the beginning. I developed an interest in eating her tiffin, and she would barely get anything! But that’s how our relationship started developing. However, it was nothing like falling in love or anything, rather we became very good friends.

After that I went to ISB and by the closing term of the course, I was thinking what to do with my life. I wondered if it would be a wise move to settle down with Khushboo. By September 2012, we had made our decision.

Did Khushboo in any way inspire the character of Simar in Can Love Happen Twice?

No. That’s a frequently asked question by my readers as well.

So, will Khushboo feature in any of your books?

Yes, that’s where Ravin’s trilogy will end. It will bring a closure to many such questions, especially since I left Ravin at a point when Simar goes to Shimla. That’s where Can Love... ends and I have left it with a mystery quotient. I need to give answers before it explodes like a bomb in my face. I can’t say if that’ll be my fourth or fifth book, but Ravin’s trilogy will happen.

It’s been more than a year since we heard about Ravin’s gang —Happy, Manpreet, and Amardeep — tell us something about them...

We are planning yet another reunion. Now we have to consider the fact that we are all married and multiplied by two, so we are eight now. While I got married in September 2012, Happy tied the knot in October. Amardeep and Manpreet were already married.

The first reunion, as mentioned in I Too Had a Love Story, happens in Calcutta, where four of us bachelors are sitting at a launch ghat and thinking what to do with our lives. So, let’s see when that (reunion) happens!

You had quite a lucrative job after an MBA from ISB, but you left it to become a full-time author...

It was one of the most difficult decisions of my life, actually. Especially since I came from a tier-I B-school of the country, got a job in a tier-I company and at a senior position on the first day of placement — my life was secure. Then to just move out of it all? It’s been tough.

However, I thought to myself that I have been writing for the past five years. The debut project can be a matter of luck, since readers might feel that there is something different or appealing about the story. But the litmus test is when you come out with your second release and you get phenomenal response. I became sure that this was a career I could hold on to. At the same time, a lot of things were happening, invitations to literary festivals, corporate events... and it was getting difficult to do all this while working full-time.

Writing is a job where you don’t have a boss, you don’t have to take permission or give status reports. Not that any of my bosses were bad to me, but Ravinder Singh in the world of writing would have a better presence versus Ravinder Singh in the world of IT, and any wise person should choose a place where one can make a difference.

You are coming to Calcutta later in June...

I am really looking forward to Calcutta and sandesh! We never get good sandesh anywhere else. Last time a bunch of readers actually brought sandesh for me. But more than that, Calcutta is a city that is truly into the world of books, readers there have respect for literary as well as mass-market authors. I am a lot more excited than my readers and I am looking forward to meeting all of them.

on wife Khushboo: She used to get home-cooked food and I loved that fact right from the beginning. I developed an interest in eating her tiffin, and she would barely get anything! But that’s how our relationship started developing. However, it was nothing like falling in love or anything, rather we became very good friends

on writing full-time: Ravinder Singh in the world of writing would have a better presence versus Ravinder Singh in the world of IT, and any wise person should choose a place where one can make a difference

Sreyoshi Dey

What do you love about Ravinder’s books? Tell t2@abp.in

Ravinder Singh will launch Like It Happened Yesterday and interact with readers on June 29 at Crossword Bookstore, Elgin Road, 6.30pm