What is the buzz about #AbHarWishHogiPoori? Blogger friends are joining in to form a unique wish chain with their blog posts, inspired by this Flipkart video. Fellow blogger Bhakti just bought a barbecue grill for her dad. She wishes the grill will help him reignite his old dream and cook his heart out.

Something about the grill got me thinking of the charcoal grills that are so common in the US. Every household has one and it has a place of pride in the backyard. An evening meal in the summer is almost always cooked on the grill.

I studied in a small university town in the US. Summers were long and harsh, and a great time to barbecue. Soon after 5 PM, you would see people come out of their homes, slap something on the charcoal grill and go back in. As I walked to my 7PM class along Hester Street, I would smell the food cooking from house to house. The residual smells of burnt out charcoal and grilled meats would still be in the air when I came back home later in the evening.

Thinking of those summer evenings in Stillwater reminded me of my ultimate dream as a writer.

I want to write an epic novel – have wanted to ever since Arundhati Roy won the Booker prize – and a part of it will definitely be set in the small college town where I first set foot, the place that shaped my journey in a foreign land. The world was so different a decade or two ago. There was no social media or WhatsApp and I didn’t know a single soul when I stepped off the plane in a new and strange country. It cost 5$ to call home for 10 minutes. And 5$ was a fortune – an hour’s worth of manual labor.

Will a retro campus setting attract Millenial readers, I always wonder.

My friend Bob keeps urging me to start working on my book. But I am always too busy with mundane things.

Time is precious, Bob says. He just finished his second novel and is researching his third. He is over 70. He doesn’t want me to wait that long.

Let me tell you about Bob. Bob was one of my coworkers and worked in IT for most of his life. But the writing bug was always in him. He started writing short stories, and seeing his story printed in a magazine was just the right motivation he needed.

I admire Bob so much. He dreamed of writing a novel and worked on it diligently even while working a full time job. He woke up at 5AM every day, wrote for an hour, and then went to work. We used to discuss what he wrote that day at lunch and he would hand me over a printout of the day’s work. Bob’s book is set in France during World War II and is romantic suspense. I used to somehow control myself until I reached home after work. Then, as I heated water for my tea, I would stand over the stove with the printed sheets in hand, pouring over the new chapter, making notes and editing as I went along. The next day, we would talk about my comments, and new plot points and so on.

Printouts of chapters from Bob’s book as it was written

Bob is going to be my biggest supporter, critic and guide when I start work on my book. Of course, we are not in the same town anymore, and we can’t just meet at our neighborhood Starbucks to go over the story. We will have to connect over air.

Bob always talks about how his Mac kept him straight, and because I know Bob loves his Mac, it is like a motif I associate with writing.

I wish I had a Macbook Air! It is powerful and super light so I can carry it anywhere – across the world, to a café, or to a local park maybe.

I promised myself that when I started my novel, it would be on an Apple Macbook. Neither the Macbook, nor the novel have come into my life yet. Sometimes I actually believe that the Mac is holding me back from beginning work on my magnum opus. It is silly, but hey, I can grasp at straws!

I have written a nonfiction book or two, like my book on Blogging with WordPress, for example. But I really wish to write a big novel, one that will be printed by a big name publisher like Random House or Penguin. The shelves at Crossword or Barnes & Noble will be lined with my books. I will smile prettily out of my photo on the dust jacket. I will go on book tours and book signings and readers will line up to talk about my book.

Writing fiction is like that distant dream, the dream that seems unattainable, the dream that you are too scared to openly pursue, because who knows where that dream will take you? Maybe life will change overnight, or maybe I will get writer’s block on Page 1!

So yeah. Having that Macbook will just give me a feel good factor, like a lucky stone a child clutches in his hand, or the colored gemstones people wear for good fortune.

Wishes are fine. But us humans still need to act. I must start writing my novel today, if I want to see it published soon. I want to do this for my dear friend Bob, who has motivated me to start writing, start writing anything. And yes, this blog also owes many thanks to Bob.

Inspired by Flipkart, I believe #AbHarWishHogiPoori. Every Wish Fulfilled!