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• Personal Growth

September 2003

By Nishta Shukla

Anil Kumar is a people’s author. Writing books inspired by life around him, he wants to motivate with fact and fiction

Here is a man who has a lot to say. He can talk incessantly about his books and about his understanding of life. In the past two decades, he took up a career as art director, and ran an advertising business for many years. His urge to communicate resulted in the many books that he penned within a span of a few years. Today, he is a writer and has his own publishing house, Krantz Publications, in Delhi.

As the author of Madhyam Marg, The Fourth Dimension, Active Yoga, Between Death and Life, Waiting for a Miracle? and The Zero State of Mind, Anil Kumar seems like a man of many ideas. He has written books on varied subjects, on the ups and downs of life and his muse never seems to let him down. Where he has written self-help books like The Nine Mantras to Excel, he has also written thought-provoking ones like Between Life and Death.

A writer not a reader, he writes from within his mind and heart and so in all likelihood you would not say: “ah, he sounds like that one”. But this writer does have some things to say that one might not find somewhere else. Whether you want to agree with what he has to say or not is another matter.

He sees the apprehension within and says: “I don’t need to go to America to learn about Indians. Say if I want to learn about God, why do I need another’s opinion?”

Unlike most motivational gurus who sell dreams on how to reach the top, he talks about the needlessness to be number one. He asks why being on top is important. That a person who came fourth just because he took one step less doesn’t make him a failure. “You can’t equate him with the one who came 50th,” he concludes.

The minute you want to talk about his books, he first clarifies: “I am not trying to be a philosopher or a writer or guru, but only saying things to share my experiences with everyone.”

Little wonder then that his writings are not erudite, high-strung sermons. They are simple works sprinkled with stories that he has written to explain and substantiate his own thought process.

His first book, Madhyam Marg, was in fact inspired by the story of a friend who committed suicide after a life of struggle. At the time he died, the society, as a whole, seemed to be undergoing a struggle as he read about more and more people following the same option. So he decided to write what he thought of the whole affair.

He believes that people who contemplate suicide are nice people, like everyone else. They just give up for shame. But the idea is to understand that it doesn’t solve the problem. He puts the sombre issue lightly for us: “If you commit suicide because you can’t clear a debt, the other person in frustration is going to do the same. Instead, sit on the debt because suicide will not help anyway. And when you have the money, you can repay the person to get over your shame.”

His selling line is: ‘Simple stories with simple solutions’. And truly so, because neither is the writing tough, nor is the philosophy. A believer in simplistic writings, he mentions: “The aim of my publication is to write for practical life. I can write ultra-modern writings but then people will not like it.”

His strength to write probably comes from the experiences he has had. He was born into a wealthy family, but once the family was so hard-pressed for money that he didn’t even have Rs 75 to pay up his exam fee. Under such trying circumstances, he was egged on by a friend into trying pilfering. That didn’t work out either. Finally, he approached a woman who was known in social circles for being stingy. To his surprise, she did give him the money!

“That’s how I knew that solutions are available to all of us. We just don’t know how to look for them. Instead we look for shortcuts to solve our problems,” says Anil.

He believes that most motivational speakers look for ‘problems’ and then sell solutions to us for a price. One important thing, he feels, is sanskaras that help when the mind wanders.

Such a believer of sanskaras and of the hierarchy of relationships in a family for peaceful living, he says the solutions to our family problems also lie with us. When one relationship takes priority over another, we face problems. That is, if the father-son relationship becomes more powerful in the family than the mother-father one, there is bound to be a rift. “We usually have no solutions when we don’t understand our priorities,” says Anil. In Fourth Dimension, he has specially talked about changing the priorities in the family by maintaining hierarchy.

Anil asserts that his books are not management books but try to provide solutions for problems. He is not one for what they call ‘change of attitude’. He says attitude is not a dress to be changed. In his book, Waiting for a Miracle?, he provides six points for success. Yet, in a bookstore, you will only find his books under the label ‘motivational books’.

Anil publishes his own books under the name of Krantz Publications. But he now plans to bring in more writers to expand its publishing frontiers. His books are available only in some of the big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Calcutta and Jaipur. But being placed on firstandsecond.com they are available to everyone. His recent book Between Death and Life is selling well. Not a motivational speaker, he is trying to spread his word through advertising, reviews and seminars. “But Krantz is my big dream,” he says with stars in his eyes.

One can look forward to his forthcoming book, The Ultimate Truth, which the author is quite excited about. With only three characters—God, Devil and a human—it is about their relationship. And because it talks well of and for everyone, he believes it will be liked.

As we leave his office he tells me: “You should also keep this in mind that anyone can be successful if he believes in it. Why should we think about who did what before us. It’s like the world’s best lyrics have not yet been written.”