Autumn and other .... stuff

October 09, 2020 in Reena & Nikesh, Writing Journey

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

John Lennon as we remember him on his 80th birthday

It's been tough these past weeks, everyone fearful that the virus is spreading again. Confusion reigns. Only six people can meet in doors, is it the same six people in your bubble? Or can you meet with five different people, one after the other? Are children counted as the six? What about restaurants and pubs? The questions that haunt us all in this time of uncertainty. It’s far too complicated. I feel for all the people who had shielded for so long and had met with loved ones again. The people who are suffering from isolation, and the increasing levels of anxiety.

Paperback copies of My Heart Sings Your Song and Where Have We Come

I did it, I'm a published author - wow wow wow wow

September 08, 2020 in Reena & Nikesh, Writing Journey

You got it, you’re wow, wow, wow, wow

In the words of Kylie Minogue, Greg Kurstin and Karen Poole

Proofs read, corrections made, colours matched, and I pressed the button to make my books live on Amazon and Ingram Sparks at the end of August. My author copies ordered from Ingram Sparks and guess what Where Have You Come arrived first. That’s a sign, right? The story of our first-born son, the inspiration for my story, the reason I wrote the books in the first place.

Proof copies of My Heart Sings Your Song and Where Have We Come and the child who story I wanted to tell

I did it, I'm a published author - part two almost there

August 17, 2020 in Reena & Nikesh, Writing Journey

We were in Brighton for the early part of last week, and before we went, I’d sent my covers and book interior to KDP expecting my proofs to when we returned, but they arrived early and we came home to these books, I couldn’t believe it. My books have been available on all e-book platforms when I say all, I mean Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, B&N Nook, Rakuten Kobo, Google, since the beginning of the year, so I shouldn’t be this excited, but I am.

Why don’t you go home?

June 26, 2020 in Reena & Nikesh

I heard something recently on social media that made me revisit my past, someone I know was racially abused while she was out for a walk by a passing motorist.

The murder of George Floyd, the portrayal of Black Lives Matter protests in the media, the English Defence League and other far-right groups turning up to defend statues and monuments has highlighted the disparity between the predominantly white population and people of colour. The trouble is our skin colour make us stand out. We are not British, how can we be. British means white, so the chants are out again ‘go back to Africa’, is what one group of peaceful BLM protesters heard in Hertfordshire.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

May 18, 2020 in Reena & Nikesh

This week is Mental Health Week, and as my writing journey started from a panic and anxiety attack, I thought I’d reflect on what is the worst of times and the best of times during lock-down.

Well-being and mental health during the lock-down is challenging, people like company, the lunch dates, the little conversations, the sessions run by mental health professionals. I know of one charitable trust who has started a telephone consultation this week and many mental health professionals have offered help through social media. But many people will slip through the cracks—the backlog of cases that require processing. The lack of physical access to GPs and support centres for those who have an increase in anxiety due to the lock-down

I did it, I'm a published author

February 24, 2020

What a couple of months and I’m going to use a lot of cliches, even though all the writer’s forums tell you not to. But what the heck, my story is out there in the wide world.

It’s been a steep learning curve, my journey of learning to write. I can see now that there are obvious mistakes, but I’m learning and boy was it hard. I hope to improve on my new craft and work on a couple more ideas for books to get my creative juices flowing. Told you I was going to use a lot of cliches.

Why I began writing

November 26, 2019

In 2006 my father was diagnosed with bone cancer and we were told that he had three months to live and I grieved for him while he was still alive but I also let myself grieve for the first time for the loss of our precious son who was only with us for a short time.

That's when I had a gem of an idea to write about my personal tragedy, and the last part of my book was written. At the time I had joined a creative writing group and got a bit of a slating from one of the participants, who thought it was rubbish and put it away, thinking that I was never going to be a writer.

March 25, 2026

First Time I Shared My Work Publicly

Letting people see your words brings a certain fear. Not the everyday sort, like the missed deadline, the awkward sentence, but something far more exposing. The fear that asks. What if they see too much?

Years passed before I shared any writing publicly, still carrying that fear. Because my story wasn’t just a story. It was a loss.

In the early 1990s, I experienced the heartbreak that quietly reshapes a life: the loss of my baby. It was difficult to find places to speak about it openly at that time. Grief, especially that kind of grief, lived behind closed doors in my community. People acknowledged it in hushed tones and harsh ones, and I would endure.

July 24, 2025

Book Launch Reflections – True Love Again

A huge thank you to everyone who came out to support me on the day of my book launch—it truly meant the world, especially as we braved that unexpected scorcher of a day together! I’m so excited to finally share True Love Again with you. Writing this feel-good romance, filled with warmth, hope, and a cast of loveable characters, has been a real joy. At its heart, the story is about second chances—at life, at love, and at happiness. If you or someone you know enjoys heartwarming stories with emotional depth, I promise this one won’t disappoint.

January 14, 2025

Reflecting on Five Years of Writing

This month marks a significant milestone for me—five years since the publication of My Heart Sings Your Song, the first book in the Reena & Nikesh University series. It’s hard to believe that in January 2020, I took the first step in a journey of telling my story, the story of the birth of our profoundly disabled son. A story that changed my life in so many ways. Later in March, the second book Where Have We Come, a story of baby loss and grief followed, solidifying my place as an author and allowing me to connect with more readers.

August 15, 2024

South Asian Heritage Month

It’s the fifth year of South Asian Heritage Month in the United Kingdom and this post was going to be a joyous celebration of how far we’ve come. The East African Asian who came to settle in Britain as we elected a new government and said goodbye to Rishi Sunak, who proudly declared that he was the grandson of East African Asian migrants who came to England after the East African countries sought independence from Britain. But the race riots have left a sour taste in my mouth. Once again I am targeted for being the other, the migrant who came to this country. I had hoped that the racial threats and violence I witnessed and experienced as I grew up would not be an experience that my own children would ever have to endure.

July 24, 2023

Steamy Romance and Emotive Women’s Fiction

A recent comment by a visiting nephew got me thinking. He implied my books were erotica, and he wasn’t sure he’d want to recommend them as I was his aunty. I told him sex is normal and that I’d like him to recommend my emotive women’s fiction if my romance made him uncomfortable.

Later I received a review on Amazon India for My Heart Sings Your Song, that implied that it was all too racy in the bedroom.

April 24, 2023

Book Review & TV Adaptations

A very different blog post. I’ve been reading and watching book adaptations. Not Great Expectations, BBC One, but other books.

Because of the pandemic, many of us switched to the streaming services provided by Amazon Prime and Netflix. You’ve probably watched many mini series and didn’t even know that they were a book adaptation.

Here’s a list of some of my favourite books and recent TV adaptations.

Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng
This is Going to Hurt - Adam Kay
Anatomy of a Scandal - Sarah Vaughan
Persuasion - Jane Austen

And if you like fantasy dramas, my favourite is The Witcher - Andrzej Sapkowski. For historical fantasy adventure set in 1700 Scotland its Outlander - Diana Gabaldon and finally for a fix of Regency dramas, Bridgerton - Julia Quinn

December 9, 2022

Gratitude and Reflection

I haven’t published a blog as regularly as I did last year and the reasons are twofold.

2022 has been a tough year for me and has left me vulnerable in too many ways.

It was a big anniversary year. Thirty years is a long time, but there are days when it only seems like yesterday that we lost our son. I’ve felt sadder than usual this year and I wonder if it’s because I’ve actually told people how I feel about losing him. How that child, who on a molecular level, is still with me or is it because as I get older I’m reflecting on my life more.

I’m in an anxiety loop and this is what it looks like.

I push beyond my well-being and can’t say no to additional work. When I mean work I don’t mean the paid sort, but just stuff that gets piled onto my to-do pile.

As the list gets longer and longer everything crashes down on me and I don’t do any of the things on my list.

January 10, 2022

Thirty years ago, this child came into our life, my creative memoir

My inspiration, my creative memoir. It all started with him thirty years ago this week. Our son came into our lives, turned it upside down and then left us exactly eight weeks later. When it happened, I believe we were in shock and went back to normal. If you call being childless normal, the worst part of it was pretending everything was all right, pretending that your heart wasn’t shattered into tattered rags, some so thin that no matter how much you tried to stitch it together there just wasn’t enough of the cloth left to sew into. So you let them go and they swish around in the cavity that holds your heart. That rag analogy came to me as I write the second draft of my next Bollywood inspired University series duet, Sonali & Deepak. It's a scene when Sonali eventually

November 5, 2021

Festivals and cultural heritage

Diwali, Deepawali, Divali is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and some Buddhists. It is an ancient festival mentioned in early scriptures as far back as the 1st millennium CE.

For someone like me who grew up in England, Diwali often coincides with Bonfire Night, 5th November. A burning of the effigy of Guy Fawkes who plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.

This year, the two events coincide again, and we will have fireworks in abundance across the land.

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