A love story need not be an empty read; it can be used to highlight issues ailing society, and Ravinder Singh has done just that. By interweaving a love story with the tragedy of a road accident, he has tried to shine a light on the importance of road safety in his latest book — Will You Still Love Me?
“If I said that I wanted to talk about road safety, not many people would have been interested. But because it is presented in the form of a love story, many people can relate to it. I believe people don’t like being lectured about road safety, or any other issue for that matter! There are enough sign boards around and no one respects them. But everyone wants to read a love story,” said Ravinder Singh, who did his MBA from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, was in the city for a meet and greets session with his fans on Saturday.
Will You Still Love Me? takes readers on a journey in which they vicariously experience pain and suffering in the aftermath of a road accident through Lavanya Gogoi and Rajveer Saini, the book’s main characters. It is a book that is especially close to Singh’s heart as he too lost his girlfriend in a road accident nearly a decade ago and his father too lost his right leg in a similar accident sometime back.
The author kicked-off the meet-and-greet session by explaining the book and his reasons for writing it and then proceeded to answer questions from readers.
“Every morning, when I pick up a newspaper, I read about at least half a dozen people having lost their lives in road accidents. This is an issue that needs to be addressed,” the author said.
A large portion of the book is based in Meghalaya, a state that Singh hasn’t had the chance to visit yet. When asked by a reader about the setting of the book and how he managed to represent it authentically, Singh said, “That was the most difficult part. Due to some constraints, I was unable to go to Meghalaya, and I had to make do with books and videos about the place.” He added that many of those who had read the book had expressed a desire to visit the north-eastern state.
When asked why he had chosen to make his female protagonist, Lavanya Gogoi, an Assamese girl, Singh responded, “Why not? Isn’t the north-east a part of India? If I can write about female protagonists from other parts of the country, why not Assam?” He went on to talk about racism, another prevalent issue. “When we go outside India and are attacked based on our nationality, we make a big deal of it.
But within the country, we do the same thing by discriminating against the residents of the north-eastern states. In literature, people from the north-east are rarely represented as protagonists. I wanted to change that,” he said. The event ended with the author signing books for his fans, followed by a selfie session.
