my comments...

As a child I was fascinated by Bollywood movies. We didn't have a video player until I was about ten so my first taste of the films that would later lead me to write Rani and Sukh came at the homes of uncles and aunts who hardly ever watched anything else.

Down the street a young couple who knew my parents would take me and my sister to the local cinema too. It was there that I first saw classics such as Suhaag and Sholay - films that encompassed the entire range of human emotions in three and half hours. Oh and about fifty songs too....

Passion, intrigue, family feuds, love and hatred, long-lost siblings and absent parents - in fact any emotion or family situation that you can think of. If you combined every dodgy 1980's soap opera you would reach about one-fifth of the melodramatics of an average Bollywood hit. I loved them and I even sang along to some of the songs too, much to the annoyance of my sister who would hit me with things whenever I opened my mouth. There was one line from a song in Sholay - a tale of outlaw buddies, evil men and beautiful women made to dance on glass - that I sang over and over again.
'…yeh dorsetay hum nahe toren geh….'

At least that's what it sounded like to me, anyway. But eventually I grew up and Bollywood wasn't cool anymore. It wasn't The Clash, or Bob Marley, or even Madonna. It was Samantha Fox singing 'Touch Me' in Hindi whilst wearing a sari and a man called Baachan in a white suit. I was far to trendy for it. But in my heart something remained…

Fast forward to 2002 and picture me walking past a bus shelter in the rain. Two Asian kids, maybe fifteen, are cuddling and kissing. In my head a thousand dancers appeared and an old bag began to wail in Hindi, and from nowhere a storyline started to form in the dark recesses of my overactive (and some would say deranged) imagination. When I got home I opened a fresh pad of paper and started to write down ideas. Love, passion, evil parents, family feuds and a toothless hag pointing a bony finger at a bemused boy… An endless stream of subconscious thoughts that led to a plot which led to a synopsis and before I could stop myself I had written my first Bollywood novel!

And Rani and Sukh is it. It's a tale of star crossed lovers and blood feuds, family honour and passion, played out in the present day and in the Punjab of the 1960's - the land of my parents. It is a love story and at the same time full of action. It has killing and emotional blackmail, illicit affairs and murderous villains. Everything in fact that you get in a Bollywood flick minus the singing and dancing. I tried to put it in…honestly I did only I just couldn't get it right. But that's okay. You can make up your owns songs as you read it. Me, I think I'll go watch Sholay all over again and maybe find a new novel in it somewhere…

the story...

Rani and Sukh have just started going out together. But Rani is a Sandhu and Sukh is a Bains - and sometimes names can lead to serious trouble…Travel from modern day Britain to the Punjab of the 1960's and right back again in a ceaseless cycle of tragedy, blood feuds, violent retribution and undying love...

'this powerful read is unforgettable, 5 stars out of 5' - Mizz magazine.

 

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