His degree years at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, a premier institution of learning and then his graduate years at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh gave him his initial foray in writing, writing of technical reports creatively, His creative abilities in architecture design gave him a knack of creating a scenario involving all kinds of people and weaving a web of stories around them. It is quite fulfilling for him to create an interesting way of narration. He has spent years of such creative design experience in the United States of America and now, it was time to share his thoughts and storytelling prowess to the world.
His father, Shrichandra Agnihotri, was an established fiction writer and had several published Hindi novels to his credit. Few of them are Haveli Ki EEntein, Dhuan aur Lapten, Naee Bisaat, Dharti Ki Karvat, etc.and he inculcated in the author the love for reading, writing and storytelling. So with such a gift from the father Uday Agnihotri carried the torch forward and developed his style to write in American English.
For Uday Agnihotri it is so satisfying thing to work – at a story, at characters, to create a place and tone – and pull a novel into life. Putting the pieces together, little by little, working at it, cutting, pasting, rewriting, this is part of the sense of achievement he feels when he types that last full stop! As for inspiration, almost always it’s location that comes first, a very specific backdrop – say, California, Pittsburgh, Iran, India and numerous countries where he traveled, like Greece, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Nepal and London, England. Once the places are secure in his mind and a plot to go with them, then it’s simply a question of putting the actors, the characters rather, on the stage set!
