There is one Praveen in his mid-thirties, and excels in making some quick bucks, whichever way he could. He has made outlandish profits in stock exchange, land deals and so on. There is another Praveen who is a popular astrologer, a writer, a businessman. The second Praveen created the first one and when he did, he offered him a lot from his life. That’s where the mid-thirties come from, the stock exchange and profits come from, and the name too. But there it ends. Creator Praveen then weaves a story of fictional Praveen, whose greed leads him to yet another venture, this time a devotional enterprise, where he proclaims himself as God. “When you are an astrologer, you hear stories, of a lot of people. People don’t come to me because of my art, or my science. They come because I know how to talk. I don’t scare people by predicting miseries. I give them realistic solutions, not mantras,” says Praveen P. Gopinath, the writer, who named his newest book God.
“‘Why God?’, you may ask. I found that no book has ever come out by that title. I had read somewhere that when God and man met, the man said ‘my creator’ and the God replied, ‘my creator’. So a narcissistic side of me thought if someone had to make God, it had to be me (through the book title),” Praveen says. In the book, the protagonist observes the ways of several godmen and women and realises that this was something he could do too. He decides to become the ‘God’. But at one point he loses track of his own lies.
Praveen, the author, who has mostly written his books from episodes of his life says there are glimpses of himself in God too. But it is purely fiction. This is his ninth book, some of his most popular ones being The Ravana Affair and People I See. Praveen began his writing spell through long posts on Facebook, which got increasingly shared. And that led him to begin a Facebook page of his writings, and later a book Being moon on 31st crossroad, his first. Recently Praveen received the Indian Achievers Award 2016 for prolific author.
