An Evening for Sensuality in Literature

Hyderabad Readers and Writers Club (HydRAW) in association with Eka Publishers and Phoenix Arena, Hyderabad conducted an event "Sensuality in Literature" on 14th Feb 2020. The event was hosted by Lavanya Nukavarapu and Prithvi. The event opened with the welcome address by HydRAW founder Mr Mahboob Hussain. It was followed by musical performance by the students of Sonorous Music School led by Mr Soubhagya Priyadarsi. Renowned author Swapnil Saurav launched his 13th book 'The Magical Moments' published by Eka Publishers. Its a collection of poems on the theme Love in two languages English and Hindi. Swapnil is experimenting bilingual concept of bringing the literature of two languages as there is a very large population speaking these languages. The cover page of the book is designed by Ms Paree Kshirsagar, a student of class two. Mr Navneet presented the book review.

Book launch

An experienced software engineer by profession and a writer by passion, Swapnil has achieved quite a feat by publishing 13 books, a collection of poems and a few short stories in a span of just 9 years. A marathoner and a speaker, he has also written a couple of songs that are available on various platforms. It would be safe to say that this writer from Hyderabad is undeniably the next big in the literature world. "My father is a renowned author in Maithili, one of the native languages of Bihar". "I believe this is one of the reasons for my inclination towards reading right from childhood" says Swapnil. He grew up reading storybooks and novels and this gave him the confidence to participate in essay writing competitions in School. He would end up winning many of these literature writing competitions, reinforcing the idea of writing longer versions of the work.

Panel Discussion

Music performance by Sonorous group

Swapnil's first job was for a tech startup called Churchill Software in Bangalore. He wanted to try different things but stuck in a 9-5 clock, he couldn't do anything. He then worked for GE healthcare for the next 5 years but his heart was always into writing. He decided to do MBA and later joined a company called JDA software in his home town, that dealt in designing software for the supply chain. Involved in work made him learn a lot about supply chain management and the writer in him finally decided to draft a book. That is how he authored his first book "A-Z of Retail Management" with his colleague Mr Ravi Potti and Eka Publishers in 2011. For next 5 years he focused on writing Tech and Management books. He published following books 'Learn and Practice Python programming', 'the A to Z of cloud computing for beginners', 'Kick start your career as a Business Analyst', 'Boost your career', 'Learn and Practice SQL Programming' and 'How to start your business after a failure'. This was the beginning of his long relationship with Eka, which stands firm even today.

In 2017, his sister Smriti started "Replay Social Cafe", a one of its kind cafe where people would get coffee and formal training on career-related aspects and requested him to take classes. One fine day, Mr Mahboob Hussain, the founder of HYD Raw (Hyderabad Readers and Writers club), walked in looking for a place to conduct his club events. Thus, Swapnil came in contact with writers who would inspire him to write fiction for the first time. Swapnil came up with an idea to write fiction stories for children now that he was a father himself, as a gift for his son. His first fiction book for children, a collection of short stories "Bottles under the banyan tree and other stories' was published in 2018 to a roaring success among tiny tots and their parents, inspiring him to write more children's books. In 2019, Swapnil wrote 'Ojass, the superhero of Shyamavali', dedicating it to his son "Ojass". The book went on to become a huge success thus convincing Swapnil for its translation into 6 languages.

Swapnil's father Mr. Chandra Mohan Karn took it to himself to translate this book for Maithili readers. Dr. Surya Kaladhar, Dr. Anil kumar, Mr. Navneet Singh and Ms Chen agreed to translate it into Telugu, Portuguese, French and Chinese respectively. Swapnil translated it into Hindi. While Children's book was doing great, he decided to write fiction for his grown-up readers, something that would stir them up to the core. His mentor, Mr. Mahboob Hussain and friend Mr. Navneet Singh helped him come up with two novels that are deemed to be his best work as a writer. 'The journey beneath the system', a tale of 4 friends who leave behind their relaxed life in the village and shift to the city for a better chance, speaks volumes about the struggles people face initially in order to make a name for themselves. 'Fall in love, again!' is a romantic novel expressing a woman's feeling after the breakup and her odyssey towards forgiving herself to let go of the past, and giving herself a second chance.

"The Magical Moment" marked his 13th work. Even before books went to stores, a couple of his work has been recorded as songs by Nishant Bhosle and are available on Saavn, Amazon Music and other platforms worldwide.

Next program was the round panel discussion: Poetess & Novelist Lavanya Nukavarapu in conversation with

• * Prof. Gopal Krishna, Arba Minch University, Ethiopia
• * Col (Retd) Kanchan Bhattacharya, Poet
• * Prof M E Veda Sharan, EFLU, Hyderabad

The last program of the evening was Open Mic, open for all for Recitation of romantic/sensual poems.

It was an awesome evening which will be cherished by Hyderabadi literati community for long time to come.