Ranabir Sen, by profession, is a market researcher. He has worked with the global market research firm, Kantar. His research work has taken him to various places worldwide, from the interior villages of Uttar Pradesh in India to the ‘souks’ of Cairo. He witnessed Dubai's growth and the unfortunate collapse of Syria. From the cobbled street-markets in Vienna to the crowded beachsides in Boracay, he has observed all sorts of consumer behavior. His unique experience of the unfamiliar and the unknowns has fuelled his passion for storytelling through this lifelong journey. He has recently come out with the book Finding Graham.

I chat with him about his book Finding Graham, how the book came to be, book recommendations, and much more.

Hello! Tell us a bit about yourself!

I have headed Operations in different market research companies across India, the Middle East, and South East Asia. During the course of my work, I meet people from various walks of life and am always curious to hear stories. As a result, I authored my first book, Arun Nandy: God of the Field, which was based on the rise and fall of my mentor amidst the rally call of economic globalization. This book got huge appreciation from the market research community which pushed me to write my second book Finding Graham. This is a thrilling tale from within my extended family about Ramesh Dutta, who went for higher studies to London, but couldn’t return after World War 2 started. However, my extended family discovered 70 years later that they might have relatives in the UK that we were unaware of. My third book Tears of My Motherland is an Indian immigrant story set in Vietnam and the Philippines.

I stay in Gurgaon with my wife Debjani. Our only son, Romit, works with a leading bank in Toronto, Canada.

If you could only describe your book “Finding Graham” in five words, what would they be?

Thrilling, Relatable, Memories, Mission, Homecoming.

Now tell us a little more about the book! What can readers expect?

Joyee had no idea that her love for thrillers and suspense stories will, one day, lead her to open a golden fleece that will help her and her family unearth some very old mysteries. The story will take readers to 1930’s London, give them a glimpse of World War 2, and bring them back to the present times. The story will also tell readers about how wars devastate families, separate lovers, and force them to forget each other.

Finding the person Graham was never an easy task, as a matter of fact, ‘how will you find someone who doesn’t exist in your life?’ This book will take readers on a journey of revelations that will open layers of untold stories that are closely intertwined with other. This is a tale about a family that lost someone and eventually found someone too!

What inspired you to write this book?

We all connect people and the past through real life stories, personal memories and family histories. I needed to tell this story that straddles many cultures and nations, finally ending with the homecoming of someone who was unknown, unfamiliar, and unseen.

How did you go about creating three-dimensional characters and mapping out an engaging plot for this book?

This is a book of fiction based on facts. The actual ‘facts’, as we know them, leave many gaps which can only be filled by conjecture, guess work and creative writing. I have used all these options to enhance the story writing to produce a fascinating work of fiction.

However the ‘scene setting’ which gradually introduced the family members into the narrative worked well before the ‘letter chapters’. I am sure that the readers will enjoy this letter writing aspect, which is not being used much in fiction writing lately. I also had to recreate, through imagination, the London and Birmingham landmarks into the war scenario and link them to the background.

Please tell us about the research that went into this book.

All the letters that have been used in the book are real. However, the effort that I had to go through to retrieve the cursory handwriting in a letter that was written in early 40s was gigantic. I had to take the help of my nephew in Toronto who meticulously deciphered each and every word and sentence.

I also had to do considerable research in exploring the political surroundings of the war times, especially in the UK and India, to bring credence to the story. Through this research, I landed up with an unknown story that had happened between Jawahar Lal Nehru and Subhash Bose. 

Is there a scene, element, or character you really enjoyed creating and writing?

Well, there is a character in the book — of our artist uncle who recently passed away. He was gifted with a tremendous sense of humour which we all enjoyed whenever we engaged with him. I had to recreate his character with anecdotes which I immensely enjoyed.

Then, there were scenes of a homecoming of an unfamiliar, unknown and unseen family member. These were crafted with lots of emotions, rituals and camaraderie.

Lastly, are you currently reading anything and do you have any book recommendations for our readers?

For many of us, the best way to learn about other's culture—and sometimes even our own—is by reading their stories. Books about immigration, written by authors from all over the world, interest me very much. What happens to a person's self, when placed in a new setting, has always caught my fascination. I haven’t yet read the book Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee, but intend to read it. This is about a Korean immigrant who spends his life trying to be a native speaker of English; trying to assimilate, essentially, into American culture. Ironically, the more American he becomes, the more alienated he feels from his own self. And when he agrees to spy on Korean-American politicians, his own questions of identity are drawn into sharp relief. I would recommend it to the readers.

The book ‘Finding Graham’ is available online and at your nearest bookstore.