Unfolding Your Own Myth... The Story Behind Elixir

I’ve long been pending on writing this piece, it sat on my to-do forever. I'd start and stop several times, almost afraid, even though I won't know what it is that makes me feel that way. It is almost like looking at your eyes in the mirror, and for long... this idea of writing about yourself in first-person. I asked myself why what is it that I am running from. So here I am, taking myself by the neck and bringing myself before the keyboard… braving it finally!

4 years back from now.

The year then would be 2013. That was when I was a qualified Associate Actuary, working with a multinational, nurturing and growing a pretty huge team and several financial projects under by relatively frail wings. Mortally addicted (read – dependent) to my reasonably healthy pay-check, and haven’t a clue that I can write anything other than PowerPoint slides for business presentations or bullet points on meeting room whiteboards.

On the personal front, every other identity was shadowed by the newly acquired identity, which was of a mother. My daughter was two then. She’d leave for playschool in the morning and wouldn’t be back by the time I’d leave for work, and when I’d be back from work past 11 in the night she’d be asleep.

We saw little of each other but thought of each other a lot more. So was life. The engine was running, the material rewards were finding their way into the bank account, at times even adding to the golden glint on showcases.

Come 2014, and a little way into it, something happens. The car starts to need servicing. This doctor and that, MRIs, bone-scans and blood reports, scary numbers and long medical bills that threaten to beat, and finally does hands down, the grocery bills and more.

2015, well, becomes the year of acceptance, that I am unwell after all! Falling ill face down. The nerve medicines, analgesics, antidepressants and alertness boosters act upon the liver and more. Doctors, over a dozen of them, hand out a sentence that it’s either a work-break or a complete break-down - you choose!

Something happened that got me writing

Somewhere around this time, phased out in depression and severe body aches from fibromyalgia and several other conditions, something happened that got me writing. Frankly, I cannot exactly say if I picked up the pen or the pen picked me up, but something like that happened in between analgesics, physiotherapy sessions and long hours of medicated sleep.

Come 2016, a funny thing happens. A few of them, actually! Somehow –  I land up with several national as well as international awards for my writing, as well as for my speaking endeavours on social issues. Social columns that were once blogs start getting featured on leading national media houses and bringing in some tangible returns, etc. And then… well, Elixir happens!

Picture Credit: Amazon.co.in

What is Elixir, but?

Of course, Elixir is that drink that the angels and demons had once fought over. It can give mortality, and better, a meaning to life! Of course.

For me, Elixir is a story that I wrote one day in 2014 sometime, sitting in my office cab at past 10 in the night, waiting to go home after a long day at work. I was wary, distressed and disarrayed from a tough day at work, and also from a life not very meaningful any longer. I had given up on myself.

Moreover, I had become lonely, closed and numb. I didn’t feel like going back home and knew that feeling would stick with me through the night, the next morning and the next.

If I were myself that moment, I’d let it pass. But something made sure I didn’t. Something made sure that I overcome the inertia and take out my office Blackberry, that I type it out.

Sorry for the cliché, but the rest, well, is indeed history!

The story of Elixir got made into a film, flew us down to Cannes and changed my destiny in ways more than one!! Several international awards followed, television interviews and newspaper headings, etc… And then, what followed after that, was miraculous. A book contract!!

In March 2016 on one fine, early, pre-sunset morning, my husband woke me up to read an email. “Monsieur”…  the mail began. And then it went on to tell us that ELIXIR had been selected for screening at the 69th Cannes Film Festival in May 2016. “See you in Cannes!” the mail ended, leaving us dumbfounded, shell-shocked at the other end of the globe.

Elixir went on to be screened at several international film festivals across and a world and within the country and won several coveted awards. We kept getting messages from unknown people from around the world.

Elixir is a story of EVERY woman. People wrote back to me, from Australia, Poland, China and the US. “How did you write my story?” women from across the world dropped in emails, Facebook messages. But what happens after that will beat everything!

Right. At the end of one of the screenings of Elixir, I am given an on-the-spot offer to sign a book contract. “But I don’t even have a manuscript!” I exclaim. “Write it, please. This story belongs to a book.” This man says, handing me his visiting card. Turns out that he is the founder of a Publishing House!

Come 2017, I begin to write, after all, still pinching myself through the process. In other news, I also land up with few more awards as both a writer and a public speaker, go on to be a finalist as Quarter-finals of World Championship in Public Speaking. And in between all of this, I gasp and finish the manuscript of Elixir.

Frankly, when I began I had little idea where to begin, how to go about it, but had to do it since I had signed the book contract already, you see!

There were many days on which I would hide away from the work desk like I’d hide away from my Mom while doing something she didn’t approve of. I was mortally scared, pinching myself all through the process.

And when it finished, I gasped once more, for now, I realized and my publisher/ editor confirmed that it has turned out to be a “literary fiction” and the narrative I’ve used is called “stream of consciousness”. Months of editing, redrafting, proofreading, cover art and spellchecks continued, and sooner than I knew, it landed up into and then out of the printing press too! It even hit the market!

Elixir got launched in November 2017. The reviews have been humbling so far. Elixir has just begun to take baby steps, and my fingers and toes are crossed as Elixir finds home in the hands of its readers. I wrote it with all my heart and my head and sitting now, here, with my heart in my mouth… all I can hope is like the film Elixir found its friends from across the world, may the book Elixir find resonance with its readers too!

I have begun to trust the voice of my subconscious, and have humbly learned how emotions and even vulnerabilities can become your biggest strength if you learn to make friends with them.

I have begun to believe in miracles

And for me, well, I have begun to believe in miracles. I have begun to trust the voice of my subconscious, and have humbly learned how emotions and even vulnerabilities can become your biggest strength if you learn to make friends with them. I’ve begun to trust in the power that is bigger than me, and that through the whirlwind of victories and losses, I’ll reach where I am meant to reach when the time and the place are right.

I still feel I am riding a ride called Elixir – as much as it arrived in my life with a destiny that had little to do with my conscious efforts or aspirations. It took me with it, really, and I am loving the journey.

Also Read: Ban Rape, Female Foeticide & Sexual Molestation: Renuka Shahane

Sinjini Sengupta is an Actuary by profession and a Writer, Painter and Public Speaker by passion. As a columnist she has written extensively on emotional well being, gender issues and social reforms. Elixir is her debut novel.