Shashank Lele

Shashank Lele was born in a middle class Brahmin
family, and spent his school years in Nagpur,
Jabalpur, and Bhopal. Exceptionally brilliant as a
child, he never fulfilled his promise in academic
terms, prefering to go for an MA in English and
Economics when most of the promising kids of newly
independent India were being urged to become doctors
or engineers.

Lele went on to become a highly successful Sales
Executive with an enginnering firm, and then gave it
up to own and manage a large poultry farm, much to the
consternation of his conservative extended family. He
also began to write for major national newpaper and
journals on political and financial matters.

Somewhere along the way, what was later diagnosed to
be ’bipolar disorder’ started to take effect. The
success story took a downward turn. Major financial
losses were followed by his marriage ending in a
bitter divorce. Manic depressive attacks increased in
frequency. He became progressively dependent on the
family to bail him out, while proving more and more
difficult to help.

Throughout these episodes, Shashank retained a curious
interest in undertanding what was happening to him.
When he was well, he remained an excellent
converationalist and a stimulating person to spend
time with. He could not keep up with any job though,
and became more and more unreliable.

Women found him attractive, and he even was briefly
married to a Japanese young lady, and spent everal
years traveling with her in India, Japan, and the USA.
But he was getting more difficult to handle, and the
marriage broke apart and he returned to India.

The bitterness of the first break-up had resulted in
his two children being kept away from his eyes. Now a
third child was left thousands of miles away. In my
opinion, these were the hardest hurts for him to
absorb.

Writing about himelf was also his attempt to
understand what was happening to him, how he got to be
what he became. He was aware of his failing health,
and perhaps saw his writing as the only way left for
him to communicate with the children he would never
meet...

Details of previous books:

[1] As Good As New and Other Stories by Shashank Lele
Copyright 1994, Rupa and Company, ISBN: 81-7167-192-6

’As Good As New’ is an autobiographical novelette. The book
also contained a fictional novelette with the Babri Masjid episode and subsequent riots as the backdrop.

[2] Thinking Women by Shashank Lele
Copyright 1999, Chhandita Prakasani, Calcutta, 1999.
(No ISBN number given)

add to my favorite writers