Top Ten + Giveaway (IN ONLY)- And We Remained by Asad Ali Junaid

Hey guys!

Today we have with us Asad Ali Junaid. Junaid is the author of And We Remained and he will be sharing with us his Top Ten reasons for why you should pick up And We Remained asap. Junaid has also generously offered to giveaway THREE signed copies of And We Remained to three lucky Indian readers. So without further ado, read on!

Summary-

And We Remained started as a story which needed to be told. The story though, wasn’t a short one. How it needed to be told had to be very different as well.

And We Remained turned into a 51,000 word novel with a compelling storyline and a unique narration style. In the 1990’s, India is going through tremendous socio-economic changes. Set in this era, it is a coming of age story of five friends in engineering—Sahir, Sandeep, Gopal, Anand and David. Their intertwined story is told by these friends through first person accounts of events in their engineering college contrasted in alternate chapters with their lives a few years later when they keep in touch, narrate events in their lives and share their experiences in India and abroad through emails, taking the story forward.

And We Remained takes you on their entertaining journey through college, love, heartbreak, prison, politics, drunken binges, strip clubs, US and Europe as they hang on to sanity and their identities in a fast changing society and a nation in flux.

BOOK LINKS:

Flipkart   Amazon

AUTHOR:

Asad Ali Junaid is a design professional in Bangalore working in the area of Human-Machine Interaction. 

Junaid’s book – And We Remained – started as a story which needed to be told… and one which needed to be told differently. While he was struggling to get the narration style and structure right, he joined a three week in residence ‘Just Write’ fiction writing workshop where he got a chance to learn the nuances of and hone his story telling skills from authors Anil Menon, Anjum Hasan and Rimi Chatterjee. 

Junaid writes whenever there is a compelling story inside him bursting to get out. Junaid has written several short stories and is currently editing his second book – which like his first one – has an absorbing story and is very different in narration style.

Junaid has been a resident of Bangalore most of his life except for brief stints in the US for higher education and work. He has seen Bangalore’s transformation from the sleepy town that it was, to an IT hub of today. 
Junaid’s wife is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Their toddler completes their home while keeping them on their toes.

AUHTOR LINKS:

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Top 10 reasons to read ‘And We Remained’

1.    And We Remained started as a story which needed to be told. The story though, wasn’t a short one. How it needed to be told had to be very different as well.

2. The book though is not a work of fiction. Characters, places and incidents are not a product of the author’s imagination but are an interpretation of his reality and are presented fictitiously.

3. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or places is entirely intentional but without any malicious intent.

4. The story comes nowhere close to a comprehensive account of life during the nineties India, Indian or American education system or way of life during it.

5. The book is not to be used as an exact or even an approximate guide on how aspiring students should try to acquire technical or other higher education in Bangalore or in the US.

     6. There is no moral in this story. There isn’t anything being preached or taught. Anything interpreted as learnings or guidance given in the book is to be used at the reader’s peril. This is not at all helpful on how matters of the heart need to be understood or dealt with, either.

7. The story is fresh, set in the 90’s India and captures a period of tremendous unrest—where the opium of westernism and modernity initiated by liberalization is consumed by parched adolescent throats.

   8. What sets the book apart is its narration style. The story is told through first person accounts of events in their engineering college contrasted in alternate chapters with the lives of the main characters a few years later when they keep in touch, narrate events in their lives and share their experiences in India and abroad through emails.

 9. The humor is clean and engaging. Vulgarity is avoided though there are plenty of references, to women, sex, pornography and the like.

10. The book is a page turner. The story does not stagnate and remains entertaining.

GIVEAWAY:

Junaid has generously offered to giveaway THREE signed copies to three lucky INDIAN readers.

Enter through the rafflecopter below or go here.

May the odds be ever in your favor!

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