Living Differently

Living Differently is the story of a septuagenarian former professor and historian, Prateep Sen, who lives in his parental home in Chaibasa, a small township in Jharkhand, with his ailing mother and Indu, his wife. Prateep is on the threshold of a new voyage from the world of facts, his earlier quest as a teacher and researcher, to the world of fiction. Fresh and raw in this new field, he does not know what story he should tell and how. A broad plot finally emerges in his mind. As he dabbles further, the storyline gradually unfolds in the form of a novelette. In ten chapters, the book narrates the story of the indomitable way three old people face an unprecedented challenge that the sudden outburst of the COVID 19 pandemic has brought in and around them. Living Differently is therefore as much a self-story as it is a juxtaposition of the agonies and ecstasies of the people around and away from him. It tells how three old people invent a new life pattern, being confined within the four walls of their house, and struggle and explore the joys of living in an unfamiliar and exciting virtual world and amongst their close ones, living many thousand miles away. In this way, Prateeps dialogues lend a new meaning to life and make living more worthwhile than being steeped into despondency in the midst of affliction.