The Title

© Atul Kaushal
Is the title justified?

Simple answer: Yes.

Justification: Though I started the book inspired by my own '7 Seconds' [a symbolic way to represent the small amount of time-frame of my accident], I ended it interestingly in a way to share the good-happy, poetic-musical and sometimes teaching-sentimental lessons.

Explanation: In its fast-paced story which does not leave any trace of doubt in the mind of the reader. Inspired by my reality till the accident, the story takes some events - and songs & poems - directly from my life. Akshant is the protagonist who is a non-serious messy teenager till he meets a deadly accident. The book teaches us a clear lesson how even a small time period of 7 seconds can make coins turn over and change faces. The already not-so-sincere Akshant has to carry the weight of 5 supplementary exams along with him to the next year. It is then focused on how the protagonist turns his mismanagement of time into near-perfect management when he clears 10 exams at one go with a nice percentage.

7 seconds' (or similar) short time interval make it full of suspense for the character in few decisive instances in his life which tend to end in laughter.

Action follows in plane hijack where the symbolic 7 seconds' time frame again plays a significant role.

So yes, the title is justified. It not only indicates action-filled sequences in the book, but also conveys the importance of time which many of us, irrespective of our age, fail to identify and respect.

The Gist of the Novel

© Atul Kaushal

The novel starts in future year 2017 with a secret female narrator describing the protagonist Akshant Sharma’s last rites after his death in a terrorist suicide-bomb attack. Then the secret narrator goes 27 years back to start again the story of the protagonist in a flashback to cover the protagonist’s birth, childhood, teenage and adulthood. She follows his life at each stage and focuses on his teenage. The author seeks to share his own experiences as a teenager almost till the middle of the story and hopes to teach the lessons learnt in his own teenage to the teenaged readers. In the following first few chapters, it becomes a young-adult-fiction which is aimed at the 16-24 age group of readers and finally it ends like a thriller involving the protagonist fighting off the terrorist hijackers at one stage and then him being killed in a suicide-bomb attack. In his fresh writing, the budding author puts forward an unbiased view towards the system of reservation & the need to rise above politics and reconsider the present viability of the social facet in India.

The author exploits his lyrical prowess in the 4 poems (these have proper tunes given to them in real life composed by the author and a few are present on YouTube^TM). The author also attempts travel guiding, describing Delhi’s Old Fort via the protagonist acting as a travel guide for a German-French tourist party and the Agra’s Taj Mahal. Other than English, the novel includes small decorative inputs in Hindi, French and German apart from inputs in Kannada, Punjabi & Haryanvi.