About

I am an architect, writer and teacher.

I grew up in India without television and learned how to amuse myself while everyone else was napping.

As a stressed-out architect, I used to work 14 hour days, designing and building projects in Singapore and the USA.

All the while I wanted to write.

Three years ago, I quit my full-time job, calmed down, and started to live a creative life. I had coffee with a friend (a former editor) and asked her, “I want to be a writer. What should I do?” She told me that I needed three publications. Being a literal sort of guy, I went home, revised an essay I’d been working on for 10 years, and sent it out.

It was published, and even made a ‘Notable’ essay in “Best American Essays of 2010.” I sent out more stories and essays, got plenty of rejections, and kept at it till I figured out to how write better.

I now teach kids creative writing at Writopialab and the DC Public School System, and adults at the Bethesda Writer’s Center.

My first novel, THE CARETAKER, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in 2013 and the sequel, BOLLYWOOD TAXI, will be published a year later.

The hardest thing this past 3 years has been figuring out how to live a creative life. It’s lonely, hard and there’s very little money.

Again, being a literal sort of guy, I read everything I could find on creativity, in all kinds of fields: psychology, self-help, Buddhism, how-to.

From all this, I’ve cobbled together a way to live, create, stay healthy, and sane. The sources and processes of creativity continue to fascinate me.

Sure, it’s a cliche, but life is a journey, folks…