The Writer

My grandfather, Mohammad Shamshullah Ansari, was a director at the Vizag Steel Plant before retirement gave him the time and freedom to devote his efforts into what has quietly lived within him for decades - writing. My Dada and Dadi have raised me alongside my parents, shaping much of who I am through their presence, their stories, their love, and the life they built around me. My dadi's bedtime stories and my dada's excerpts. I could walk in on them anytime and see a novel in my dadi's hands and my dada typing away at another one of these works you'll see here.

Every weekend, I would wake to a heartfelt message from Dada, another memory carefully pulled from the past and placed into words. I would read about the places he had been, the people he had known, the years that had shaped him, and somehow, even from a distance, I felt closer to a life that had begun long before mine. Anemoia - a word for nostalgia for a time or place that one has never been part of, and that is exactly what i felt reading these excerpts. Somewhere along the way, they also nurtured in me the love for reading.

My grandfather’s words have shaped so much of my own life, and they deserve to shine far beyond old pages and tucked-away notes. So this archive is, in many ways, a small attempt to give his words a home.

Dada, I hope this becomes a place where your stories can live a little longer, travel a little farther, and find the world they deserve.