10 Things I Want My Readers to Know About Me By Nidhi Dalmia

I am an incurably romantic. I love the beauty of being in love and the process of falling in love. With love, you forget everything and lose yourself - like in the song “ I’m so Dizzy, My head is spinning…”. It feels like there can be no higher or more sublime experience  of life.  It was the reason why I knew my first novel would have to be a love story.

I find kissing more intimate than even making love. How everything stops and one is completely in the moment when one kisses the person one is  in love with.

I really enjoy  dancing. “To Dance is to Live, to Live is to Dance”- as they said at the Arthur Murray School of Dancing in London when I further improved my dancing. It is exhilarating, it liberates you. And this is all the more with one you love – “When the Girl in Your Arms is the Girl in your Heart, Then you ve got Everything”  – Cliff Richard

Travel enriches me as I get so much out of travel. There are sights that no camera can really capture or eloquence really describe, though we do try. They form indelible impressions and change us. You submit to experiences you will never forget – especially when immersed in the local culture- hotels, local food and meeting people. Sometimes there are unexpected challenges but then you discover your resourcefulness as you find ways to deal with them. In my book, Harp, I use my thirst for travel in my characters journey and my experiences when visiting Europe in the late 1960’s and growing up in India.

I am a people person. I enjoy parties – interacting and meeting new people. There’s the Roger and Hammerstein song, “Some Enchanted Evening, you may see a stranger, across a crowded room” feeling, when I walk into a do . You can’t help but get new ideas that set you thinking , or gives you new directions. You get inspired , energised, amused.  One of the characters in my book was inspired by a throwaway comment from a stranger I met at a party.

I adore Music  –  Pop, Rock, Folk and music of the 60’s,70’s–  Elvis, the Beatles, Rolling Stones ,  Mamas and Papas, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Carole King, to name but a few in the explosion of creativity and variety that took place then as well as Classical especially  Chopin , Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Bach. It goes straight to the heart . It has its own language .

Cinema is another constant source of inspiration and stimulation. How the story takes on its own life in this powerful medium.  As Time magazine February 20, 2017 says “how its visual textures and moods can affect moviegoers deeply and mysteriously”. Even the photographs of movies in magazines like Films and Filming and Cahiers du Cinema can wet your appetite.  And when a film is well directed, well acted, the plot is good  – like Elvira Madigan- how you think about the film long afterwards,  the emotions expressed in it, the feelings encountered.  Another great source of pleasure is the Theatre . 

Tennis is my favourite sport to play with its magic of the sweet spot, the challenge of being down and fighting back, the satisfaction of a sizzling forehand in an unexpected spot, placements like in a game of Chess. I also enjoy watching it, who can resist, the white T shirts and shorts at Wimbledon? The way the grass givies the ball a spin and an unpredictable bounce.

One of my favourite pasttimes has to be curling up with a good book on the lawn  or reading in the car on a timeless afternoon.  

I am very interested in Spirituality and Philosophy. Existential questions. Who am I, why have I come here and where am I going? The human condition and questions of existence are areas that I like to explore in my writing and my reading.