India means a lot to me: Biddu

From the nine million selling Kung Fu Fighting to the iconic youth anthem of Made in India, music composer Biddu has had a remarkable and mind blowing journey till now. But the buck doesn’t stop there; the man has already started on his new journey — writing a novel.

“I have been creating music professionally for 55 years now! I needed a change. I didn’t want to end my career doing just one thing. At first I thought I will do nothing, after six months I was bored. So then I decided to either write a book or open a restaurant. For restaurant, you need a lot of money, so finally I decided to work on a book. So a germ of an idea came to me and it grew into this book,” says Biddu on starting a new journey.

His first novel Curse of the Godman is being released today. The book is set in1951 and is about a sleepy little town nestled in the hills of North-East India that wakes up to murder. An unseen spectre terrorises the scenic tea plantations around Darjeeling. A Naga sadhu wanders at night, seeking to settle an ancient score. “Curse of the Godman weaves together romance and deceit, mysticism and bigotry to bring to life in the magic of the hills,” adds Biddu describing his book.

So how different was it from creating music? Biddu says, “The discipline of writing is quite similar to creating, writing and composing music. Yes, it was challenging, since I wanted to maintain a high standard for all the critics who are going to judge me.” Presently working on his second book (set in Mumbai) and a disco album, Biddu says that growing up in India made him choose it to be the background of his novel.