I just finished reading Sepia Leaves. It was unputdownable. The only break that I took was for coffee. A-single-sitting-read!!! Well, I am a doc in California who wants to pursue Psychiatry. I have worked in Psychiatry and have taken care of schizophrenics.
Your book was an eye-opener. I always thought that I was a compassionate doctor who wanted to bring peace to the troubled minds.
The very word Paagal infuriates me and I have always tried to convince people that every patient of Psychiatry can be made to have a normal social life with the help of meds, counselling, etc. But, I never saw beyond the patients. I never saw what it did to the families. All I was bothered was about making sure that the patient took the right prescription, came for regular follow-ups and went back to being normal till the relapse occured.
Your book gives me a newer perspective of things and strengthens my resolve to be a Psychiatrist.
I read Sepia Leaves. It was like as if I watched a movie, the narration was very very realistic and very touching. At places, I felt the story was getting brutally realistic, and one needs a lot of courage to speak up personal experiences that have been so hard on you. This book talked about courage, patience, and acceptance of harsh realities of life, which probably most of us deny or are so scared to acknowledge. Hats off, wonderfully written, and God bless.
People mention Sepia Leaves to me over mail, sms (text), phone, and in person. I must start putting them here. I start with this one. Click to see Chiroti’s own blog site.
When I was writing Sepia Leaves I was concious that Rourkela was an artificial place built entirely out of the dream of one man – Jawaharlal Nehru – and with no sense of history because a lot of people, the tribal communities living there, were wiped out to create the town.
Reading Sanjitha’s review clarified the thought to me a little more. How do you describe a display window located in the midde of a marquee? She said Rourkela is ‘little India’, the kind you see when you travel abroad. In Sepia Leaves you are travelling within India, across the dreary plains of Orissa, into a place outside, into madness, into Rourkela, the display window of India.
See review here: Businessworld.in
Yes, Sepia Leaves does not do what most books on India do. Exoticise India. That is because it is located in exotic India, gone mad 
An author site on the book Sepia Leaves. The site is under construction. Please come back a little later but in the mean time browse www.sepialeaves.blogspot.com and email me, if you want to contact, at peacelamp@gmail.com.