Summers In The Past Tense

The book is fascinating, awe-inspiring, bizarre and a tad frightening served with huge dollops of humour.

The author relives his childhood days in the months when it had been an annual ritual for his family to leave Bombay and travel southward to Madras and Kerala. Through the innocent eyes and a naive, guileless mind of an impressionable young boy, he has chronicled his experience that is a joy to read for both the younger and the older crowd.

Mani is a year shy of seventy and claims to be a writer by default. He was brought up in Bombay where he graduated in Chemistry from the University of Bombay. Subsequently, he embarked on a career that, if not chequered, was not exactly boring. Having opted for a career in sales, he spent a year traversing the length and breadth of Uttar Pradesh before joining a Multinational Pharmaceutical Company and being posted in Trivandrum.

A quarter of a century and voluntary retirement later, he shifted to Chennai where he taught Spoken English to young students including South Korean kids and corporate clients too.

Burdened with a prodigious memory, he began to jot down his experiences as a kid spending his summer holidays with his Aunts, Uncles, and cousins in Madras, Trichur-Kerala.

Eventually, the book, Summers in the Past Tense, took shape. He has also provided illustrations. Mani lives in Chennai with his wife.