‘Hope? Hope not!’ is a collection of stories from all walks of life and all age groups. It’s is a reflection on human behavior and its peculiarities, written from the narrative perspective. The story traps the struggles and aspirations of the common men through different themes and genres.
Intro Story:
‘There are two kinds of hope’, he read through the text he had written and memorized. He was to give this speech at many motivational talks he would be giving once he achieved his goals. ‘The one hope is which drives you towards your goals. It is the hope that is the burning fire when you are cold and dark. This hope has been the reason for all the good things in the world.’ He paused, reflecting on his own life.
‘There’s another hope, it’s a disease disguised as hope. You don’t achieve anything, get a false sense of failure and victory because your heart and brain fail to differentiate between truth and deception. Yes, you get deceived by what you want to be, even though you can’t be the person.’
He realized he had no breathing space. And he wasn’t breathing either. He was again in two places, the world where he wanted to belong; and the world, where the world had sent him. Of course he had fallen for the second hope he wanted to warn people about in his motivational talks.
Raghav Gautam was born in 1987, and from there his experiments with hobbies began. He started writing poetry around the age of 15, started writing stories around the age of 18, then moved on to sketching, digital painting, stitch painting, and so many other things where he just didn’t stick (except for verses and fiction perhaps).
Life changed for him when he picked up his camera for a heritage walk for the second time- after almost not using it for years properly. He moved beyond auto-focus, changed his ambitions of working in post-production to working in production and as it seems- he has found a hobby which has turned into his profession, and he still yearns for those moments of personal projects which stretch him, test him, and give him pleasure in equal measures.
His writing style is natural, as he doesn’t delve deep into descriptions. He remembers R. K. Narayan’s Dateless Diary, where he mentioned that he skips writing all the descriptions that he skips while reading. Raghav has imbibed this feature. His aim is to take people into an emotional space where they can experience a world of their own.
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Happily Rubina 