Cops In A Quagmire: IPS Officer Sunil Ramanand’s Book Launch, An Evening Of Spilling ‘Secrets’
Mehab Qureshi
Pune, October 1, 2020: The sins of crime fiction are legion. Crime fiction falls prey to make their killers into more efficient and intelligent monsters. However, the best crime novels always tend to disclose the reality. This is the case with an edge-of-the-seat crime fiction thriller, ‘Cops In A Quagmire’, which unfolds the truth of Cops and crimes. It takes us into tensions between policing and communities, and between the want of an uncaring system and the cruel prejudices endured by it.
Fiction is always based upon the idea of what’s true and also allows us to inhabit a deeper understanding of the wondrous world we live in.” I am no exception to the fact that I have written this book solely based on my own experiences”, said Sunil Ramanand, Additional Director General of Police, at a book launch event held at Pune Police Commissionerate last week.
A pause in life was beginning of journey into book world; inspired to write
An engineer by profession, Ramanand was never a bookworm. It was in May 2013 when he hurt himself while exercising in the gym. As a result of which, he was bedridden for four months. During the beginning period, he kept on watching the news to spend his time, coaxed by his wife’s remark of asking him to do something better, Ramanand started reading.
Reading a cross-section of genres helps writers to formulate and put together new ideas for their writing, with this idea in mind he started reading extensively.” I had nothing to do with literature whatsoever in my entire life, as I was someone from a technical background”, he said.
Impressed by Ruskin Bond’s work, Ramanand understood the work of simple sentences to make an impact on readers’ mind.” When I first started to write down, my hand wouldn’t move”, Ramanand said.
” Slowly and steadily I began writing, but fate wanted something else from me, and I was transferred as the Joint Commissioner of Pune city Police in 2015, resulting in a pause of my passion for writing”, he added.
‘When duty called’
Boosting confidence was an easy job said the 51-year-old author of ‘Cops In A Quagmire’ while giving a funny anecdote of sharing his work with his juniors. “They had no option but to read. Yes, they always nodded their heads and some even said that nothing of this sort has ever been written,” he chuckled. However, this somehow made me confident about my work.
Subsequently in 2019, the IPS officer was transferred to the Crime Investigation Department(CID).”This was the place where I had a few moments to catch a break and helped me complete the book”.
Finally, the draft was ready. “I realised one thing that writing the book was easy, but scouting a right publisher was even more tricky than I could ever imagine”, he giggled. However, Vishwakarma Publication took the task of publishing the book amid the novel Coronavirus pandemic, he pointed out.
‘Suggested for making Netflix series’
The book has already hit crosswords, online eCommerce platforms and Marathi actor Sachin Pilgaonkar has acknowledged his work and requested for making a Netflix series based on his work.
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