Good afternoon and so long

I'm not exactly known for sentimental farewells, so let me keep this crisp and short

Good afternoon and so long

I'm not exactly known for sentimental farewells, so let me keep this crisp and short. This shall be my last column for MiD DAY. I shall be leaving soon and I plan to write a new book in the near future. I have not yet decided what to write about it is my belief that ideas find authors and that this does not work the other way around but I feel I must write, and so I have decided to take a break.

Quite some time has elapsed since my first book Sherlock Holmes: Solutions from the Sussex Downs was published in the US in 2001, and I pray that I have gained from the experience and the intervening years the maturity to write a new book. Often, I have thought about writing another book, but a lack of time has always prevented this. It is so hard to write a book when one is in the midst of editorial deadlines. But when Destiny avers that you should write a book, you end up writing a book. Period.

Talking about Destiny, she somehow wants me to write a new column after a gap of a couple of years. I started writing columns in 1995 and my first series was Anti-Column, which ran until 1997. This was followed by Obtuse Angle (2000 to 2001) and Take IT Cool (2004 to 2005). After that, I have been writing these pieces in MiD DAY from 2008 till now.

If you look at the time frames, after a two-year gap, I somehow get another column. Going by this, who knows, I may have to write another column in 2012. While my earlier columns dealt almost exclusively with information technology, the series I wrote for MiD DAY were on non-IT topics. I was at first hesitant because my knowledge regarding matters beyond IT is not exactly worth writing home about, but I decided to give it a try.

It has not been an easy task, especially when one considers that I find very little to interest me outside of Sherlock Holmes, Jyotish and IT. Many are the days when I have sat in front of a blank screen with a mind to match wondering what to write.

When I first wrote Anti-Column, I was a mere lad who had not yet seen 23 summers. When I asked my then editor for advice, he wrote out several points that I should consider. I don't remember all the things he wrote, but the last line is still fresh in my memory after all has been said and done, more must be done than said. I pray that this should always be true of anything I do.