Which book or story shaped your style the most?
“Mahabharata” has inspired me more than any other work — not as a religious text, but as a masterpiece of storytelling and world‑building. Each character adds to the plot, carrying both virtues and flaws. The tale stretches across generations, capturing the full range of human experience: love and war, aging and revenge, forgiveness and sacrifice, family and loneliness.The Mahabharata is a great epic that reflects ancient traditions and values.
Jivavarta, however, is not connected to that story. It is designed as a completely new universe, created without borrowing plots, characters, or themes from the Mahabharata. Jivavarta is meant to stand on its own, with its own principles and creative direction. The purpose is to show how inspiration from tradition can lead to something entirely original, advancing literature by building a world that is independent and different in every way.
Who has influenced you the most in your storytelling style?
My grandmother and my mother shaped my storytelling in different ways. My grandmother was a great storyteller, able to take something ordinary and make it irresistibly captivating.
The bedtime wisdom stories my mother shared inspired me and remained with me beyond childhood.
Which author is your role model?
As a child, when I was too young to read or write, I used to watch my father write. To impress him, I would scribble something on paper and show it to him, and he would praise me for my “genius writing.” He was my first role model, and because of him, my writing habit was formed.
Do you have a mentor?
My husband is my mentor. He reads everything I write, like a full-time editor who forgot to ask for a salary. He taught me how to focus, how to be concise, and how to find loopholes. Without him, my novels would not exist.
What is your educational background? Did it help you in any way with your writing?
I hold an MBA in Finance and a diploma in Investment Banking. No, they did not help me much. However, my interest in history, mythology, and classic literature has helped me a lot in my writing.
May I ask, what leads you to decline invitations to in‑person events, such as literary festivals, book signings, or author interviews?
I rarely give personal interviews or attend literary festival… not out of shyness, pride, or any carefully cultivated aloofness. The reason is simpler. A book is already a quiet conversation between reader and page, and I hesitate to disturb that.
My strength does not lie in public talk, where words slip away too easily. Others may thrive in dialogue, I do not. My true place is a quiet room, where words can rest long enough to gather meaning. My strength lives in stillness, in the slow sure silence where a sentence finds the life it was meant to have.
Originally Published @Medium
“Previous parts of the ‘Ask the Author’
https://www.shonmehta.com/2024/07/ask-author-shon-mehta.html
https://www.shonmehta.com/2025/10/ask-author-shon-mehta-part-two.html