Ever been plagued by doubt that the road not taken might have had better scenery or more interesting strangers or a pot of gold at its end? In her book If-Then-Else (Vishwakarma Publishing), Sandhya Ranganathan explores the many choices one can take and the avenues that open up as a result, through the life of her protagonist, a recently-retrenched IT employee.
“I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I was 10 years old; I would write poems and stories even though at that age you don’t really know how to complete a story. And I’ve always wanted to write a book,” says the Bengaluru-based author.
Now as a grown-up with a job in technical communications, Sandhya is still writing and If-Then-Else is not her first book, though it is her first work of fiction.
“In 2016, I put together a little bedtime story for my daughter, titled Mia Finds a Home. There was a graphics designer in my team and we collaborated on this fun project. My second book, Burma to Bangalore is my father’s autobiography which I co-authored.”
She adds, ”My grandfather was in the British Army and my father was born in Burma, but then they had to flee and eventually found their way to Bangalore. It is his story, but my father being an Army man too, wrote it like a military account. I worked on it so everybody could enjoy reading about those times in his life.”
If Then Else | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Talking about If-Then-Else, Sandhya says, “I would call it a work of contemporary fiction. When Karthik, a software engineer based in Bangalore gets laid off, there are several choices in front of him. In this book, I use the concept of parallel universes and we see his journey in three different versions of himself. It’s all about the choices we make and their consequences.”
When she started writing the novel, Sandhya said she was actually laid off. “However, I did get back to work and it was during the lockdown that I was able to complete it.”
Since If-Then-Else is about a Bengaluru-based IT guy, real-life residents of the city will be pleased to find references to popular landmarks, watering holes and the like.
Can If-Then-Else be pegged as science fiction? Not really, says Sandhya. “I’m interested in reading about quantum mechanics and quantum physics. When I read about Schrodinger’s Cat, I was taken up with the idea that you can exist in parallel planes at the same time and the scientific thought process behind it. Right then, I decided that when I wrote a book, I’d use this somewhere.“
If-Then-Else is not science fiction, Sandhya says. “I’ve used the concept more as a literary device — what are the choices we make and what are their consequences? We are constantly making choices, about our studies, career, life partner. We don’t and can’t think them all the way through.”
Though there are other books in the offing and she toys with the possibility of turning her blogs into a book, Sandhya says, “I too, am curious to see where Karthik choice leads him.”
