Writer
I've loved words and read fiction all my life, but my career has been in science. I worked as a professor and neuroscience researcher at the University of California Davis Medical Center or thirty-five years, of which ten years were served as an associate dean for medical education. When I moved to LA, I taught at the USC Keck School of Medicine for five years. I’ve published numerous scientific papers, and, won many teaching awards.
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Since retiring in 2012, I took the decision to pursue writing and acting, both of which have become my new passions. It took me close to five years to complete my debut novel, DHARMA,A Rekha Rao Mystery.
The experience helped me learn how to write fiction.
My second novel, ANKANAM, An Inner Courtyard is now in the hands of an agent in India after being rejected by close to fifty agents here. I am now starting to write my third novel, The Wanderings that incorporates magical realism.
Having been a scientist most of my adult life, writing fiction has been a journey from the left
side of my brain to the right. I’ve now lived more time in the US than in India, and the combined experiences offer me a unique perspective on life.
Books
​I had a prologue in 2016 that I was encouraged to remove from my book; Dharma - A Rekha Rao Mystery. Here it is.
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February 25, 2016
Jwalapuram, Kurnool District, Andhra Pradesh, India.
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This was no ordinary statue; it was Durga, as the Mahishasura Mardini, slayer of the buffalo-demon. Never before had Balram been in charge of transporting a Hindu God.
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Scrawny, dark-skinned and shirtless, the man let out a whistle as he gazed at the idol in front of him, fear slowly building a fire in his empty belly. He did not fail to recognize the most powerful Goddess in the Hindu pantheon in her most fierce incarnation. Created with the combined energies of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, she rode a lion and carried weapons in her four arms, one the trishul that pierced the neck of a creature, half-man and half-buffalo. She was none other than Mahishasura, the vile destroyer of peace.
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He had conducted three days of prayers on his own, the Durga Pooja, in preparation for the task ahead of him today, although it was the wrong time of the year, the wrong month, and the wrong date. This Durga would not be worshipped by the rest of the country for nine days during the festival of Navaratri in homes or temples with floral offerings and chants, or carried in procession all over town with the sounds of tablas, flutes and harmonious singing of devotees, to be immersed in a nearby river, lake or ocean. This deity he alone would carry, hidden in a rucksack, to the rail station.
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With trembling hands, the man held up the statue that seemed to glow in contrast to the soot-laden mud walls, splintering thatched roof and meagre furnishings of his hut. He shook dark, dusty soil from the statue onto a paper, gathered it, and secured it in a sandalwood box. He would submerge it later, in privacy, in the waters of the Hundri, a tributary of the Thungabhadra that rises in the fields of Maddikera and flows eastward. An effort, hopefully, to wash off his sin. Aware that time was running out, he placed the Durga on a brass plate decorated with multicolored paisley inlays, snatched the Polaroid camera he acquired from a tourist, and snapped a photo. He mixed a paste of sandalwood, dipped his little finger in it, and applied a small dot to the statue's forehead, and placed one on his own, now glistening with beads of sweat. He lit a small clay oil lamp, and placed an offering of rose petals before the Goddess.
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His one room thatched house with mud walls and floors was hardly appropriate surroundings for the deity, but he felt compelled to offer prayers. He knew that the real Durga Pooja rituals are long, detailed and complicated, fit only for the hands and mind of an educated Hindu priest. He was no priest and only knew some broken verses of a prayer.
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"Tuma ho jaga kii maataa,
Tuma hii ho bhartaa Bhaktana kii dukha hartaa,
Sukha sampati kartaa."
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…You are mother of the universe, its sustainer, reliever of your devotees' affliction and bestower of happiness and prosperity…
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He prostrated himself on the floor, whispered more prayers, his arms extended and palms folded in front of his head. He got up, avoiding the eyes of the goddess, afraid of her wrath. He wrapped the statue in layers of cotton and newspaper and stuffed it into a plastic bag. This he placed carefully into a rucksack.
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The boss had made all the arrangements as always. The rucksack would be exchanged with an identical one carried by a middle man at the rail station. He had little information about the chain of people and events that connected him with the boss and the buyer, and the fate of the objects he transfered from one hand to another. What he looked forward to is an envelope containing five thousand rupees that would soon arrive, to provide for rice, sabji, cigarettes and toddy for months.
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Balram put on a clean Madras shirt, took off his dhoti and pushed his skinny legs into a pair of jeans too large for him, all bonuses from the boss. He traded his beaten Jodhpuri chappals for a pair of Nikes which are good for walking or running if need be. He lugged the rucksack onto his shoulder, locked the room and walked out to the dirty pavement littered with trash, cow dung and spit, and hailed a taxi.
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The Durga pressed sorely on his back, but its weight was nothing compared to the weight of the guilt he’ll carry for the rest of his life.