Date Published: 11-01-2024
Publisher: Troubador
Matthew’s journey takes him from the poverty of a cold stone granary to the opulence of Mayfair and Kensington Palace Gardens, where he starts a family of his own. Despite working his way to the top of the business world, he remains an outsider to London’s elite. He then realises that same elite has an ugly underbelly. High society was a hot bed of depravity.
Will he correct society’s wrongs? Will the man who never succumbed to expectations be able to challenge his own destiny, or will he simply accept the futility of it all?
What really struck me when I researched the historical aspect of “Choppiness on High Seas”.
My research focused on four areas: WW2’s Blitz in London, Bournville, the closure of the Suez Canal, and the oil crisis.
On the Blitz in London, what surprised me the most was the fact that daily life, social contact, children’s education, and medical care continued efficiently and effectively. For the first time, I really understood the meaning of Bulldog Britain. The spirit and resilience of one of the lead characters, Gail Stephens, resonated with this “fighting against all odds” tenacity.
I wondered smilingly to myself how the societal behaviour transition from the pugnacious, high-spirited resistance against the Nazis to the luxury of “complaining about the weather” had transpired.
Bournville fascinated me in terms of the progressive staff welfare ideology, but at the same time I wondered to what extent such an initiative would play out in today’s independent and selfish-minded society.
Suez Canal’s closure demonstrated the disproportionate impact a country can have if it enjoys a specific geographic, strategic privilege. Ironically, this has played out, in reality, again this year with the Strait of Hormuz crisis.
The oil crisis of the seventies, caused successively by the Yom Kippur War and the Iranian Revolution, was also interesting as I wondered if something like that could ever happen again. Here again, history has just repeated itself.
That is fascinating; I believe Anthony Eden was the PM during the Suez crisis. I did research on him during the Munich Pact, 1938. He was part of a group known as The Glamour Boys, as was an MP,, Anthony Crossley who died in 1939 in an Imperial Airways plane crash in Scandinavia with my Maternal Grandfather,, Cesar Agustin Castillo.
Arvind has three adult children, who all live away from Belgium. He reads literary fiction and was motivated to write after reading three key books: The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Thérèse Raquin, 1984 and East of Eden. He is fascinated by the co-existence of good and evil. In his first book, Emma's Equilibrium, he relates the story of an Olympic winner who suffers hurt along the way. Choppiness on High Seas charts the life of Matthew from his ignominious birth to his passing away in peace after having become one of the weathiest persons in the world.
Arvind loves languages and can speak French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian, Hindi, Punjabi and Gujarati. He is a stroke survivor and rides, jogs and does yoga.
He is a strong believer in the duality of fortune and misfortune. He is deeply spiritual.
Arvind finds writing challenging and frustrating and editing particularly painful. He, however, believes that writing can be therapeutic and gratifying.
