Mainak Dhar wears many hats. A self-described ‘cubicle dweller by day and writer by night’, he loves creating and sharing stories. His latest experiment is an audio adaptation of his political thriller ‘Sniper’s Eye’. Metrolife caught up with him about his journey.
What drew you to writing?
Ever since I was a child, I loved storytelling! I had an imaginary friend who sat next to me in class and wrote a diary about how the world ended and buried it in the garden so that future historians would find it! The first real push towards the dream of being a writer was an interview of Stephen King that I read when I was eleven years old. He had said something to the effect that anytime anyone paid you a penny for your work, you were a published author. I was living in Canada at the time. I took some poems I had written, stapled them together with solutions to the next term’s Math textbook (figuring nobody would want to pay for my poems alone) and sold them to my classmates at fifty cents a copy. The $12.50 I earned was my first ‘royalty’ payment! That was perhaps when my dream of being a published author was born and I’ve been lucky to be able to follow my passion for writing and storytelling along with my career in the corporate world.
You have a prolific career as an author, is there a reason why you haven’t taken the plunge to do it full time?
I like having multiple dimensions to my life, as they add value to me in different ways and make me who I am, versus forcing myself to bracket myself as being one or the other. What is common across my corporate career and my writing is my passion for leading with ideas and connecting with people to make a positive impact on them.
What led to the audiobook version of ‘Sniper’s Eye’?
Pratham (the founder of Headfone, an audio storytelling platform) had reached out to my agent about wanting to do an audio drama adaptation of ‘Sniper’s Eye’. As I learned more about what he was trying to do with the platform, I was interested. I liked having the opportunity to reach out to new audiences with the story, and I’m quite happy at how they’ve adapted the story into a very immersive and multi-sensory experience.
The audiobook sounds more like a play than a traditional book. Was it intentional?
That indeed is Headfone’s vision; to create more immersive audio dramas, instead of just a traditional audiobook reading. I think it adds a lot of value as the listener can relate to different characters and the music and sound effects help to enhance the dramatic effect.
Would you be open to doing more audiobooks? Do you think all your books would do well in this medium?
I would certainly be very open. As a writer, it’s always good to learn about and try new ways of connecting with audiences.
I think a lot of my fiction, which tend to be thrillers, would fit in well with the kind of format Headfone has tried with ‘Sniper’s Eye’.
What plans do you have going forward?
A non-fiction book, ‘Brand New Start’, just released in January. It was inspired by my desire to help young people dealing with career uncertainties in the environment we’re living in nowadays. It aims to equip readers to fast-start their careers by building a more authentic, differentiated and compelling personal brand.
However, I will be returning shortly to the world of fiction. The second novel in the series, ‘Sniper’s Debt’, was published in mid-2020, and I’m currently editing the third book in the series, ‘Sniper’s Quest’, which should release later in 2021.