Ending The Year On A High!

And so, another year approaches the time of that baby's arrival, who lay in a manger and was visited by magi, with all the accompanying festivity...

This is also the month when Ghalib was born in Agra 215 years back.

And this is the month of reflection. Of counting our blessings and saying thank you. Thank you Mirza Nausha for your incomparable poetry, but for which I'd never have learnt to weigh words. As you were prescient enough to say, Hui muddat key Ghalib mar gaya par yaad aata hai - your shayari offers the gift of comprehending life; its essence is life itself.

It's been a good year - a year in which I launched one book in the market and finished writing the first draft of Book 2 of the planned trilogy. A year of hard work, much fun, travel, family and happiness.

To cap off a cheerful year, my Publisher sent me this review of The Taj Conspiracy that appeared in several Indian newspapers yesterday. It is a great feeling to have your book in the news and being reviewed when it has been in the market for over 7 months. Especially when the review is the kinda every writer yearns for: "Erudite Manreet Sodhi Someshwar has laced the thriller with vignettes of history and art... With a backbone of solid research and an easy read, the book is a winner."

 Here's wishing all of you much happiness and love and luck and good health in 2013! And here's to great books, much reading and wondrous gleaning from the ocean of words you shall dive into.