Author: ofcreations
Title: Fearless
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Red: Hello and welcome to the studio. How are you doing?

Ofc: I’m doing fine. First week of college just started

Red: College huh? That’s good. What are you studying?

Ofc: I’m a computer science major.

Red: Aww a fellow computer nerd. Although I’m hoping to do computer engineering.

Ofc: Interesting, that’ll be fun.

Li: *glares😒* Start the interview already.

Red: *rolls eyes🙄* Alright grandma keep your pants on.

Sop: *smirks😏*

Red: Alright so let’s get started on the interview

Ofc: Okie dokie

Red: So your book is titled Fearless. That’s a name with a lot of power and the imagery used depicts the same thing. Why did you choose such a title?

Ofc: The protagonist is almost always fearful throughout the book, even right until the end she fears for her life.
She fears for what would happen the next day and what would happen to her loved ones. The day she finally gets her justice is the day she realizes how brave she actually was all along, and asides from her fears of the antagonist she has no fears. She is fearless. And I hope any kid who went through what she did blooms into their strong fearless self one day.

Red: Those are some powerful words. Now you’ve mentioned your character but first please tell us a little what your book is about.

Ofc: The book is about Vidya tackling her biggest nightmare- her father.

This is about child abuse, about how common it is and how normalized it is in some communities.

It highlights the nuances that are really involved when someone mentions the word “abuse”- gas lighting, brainwashing, inducing fear into the victim, emotional blackmail along with physical abuse.

Vidya struggles so much to even realize that what she was going through was abuse and that she has the right to report it in order to protect herself. It really answers questions life: “well why doesn’t she just leave if he’s abusive?” or flippant comments like “there’s no such thing as depression, it’s all in your mind. Cheer up.”

Red: Hmm🤔 it seems this story is quite dear to your heart. So tell me what/who inspired you to write such a story?

Ofc: I’ve seen these monsters up close and I’ve also seen the victims defeat them. Their story needs to be told and I am doing just that. I’ll feel comfortable revealing more details after a couple of years but yes, this is based on a true story. One that’s very close to me.

Red: It’s truly sad that such vile things are still going on in the world.

Ofc: Yeah it is, I hope my generation brings a change. I know things were worst in the past but time does heal wounds.

Red: Yes there’s a lot more progress in the world now and there is room for change.

Ofc: Better therapy, better awareness, a more open society- all of which help. They do help make sure that the child doesn’t grow up to become a f**king terrorist you know.

Red: Exactly. So now let’s talk about the antagonist in this story, Vidya’s father.

Ofc: Ooh boy

Sop: I already hate the guy *frowns😡*

Red: Tell us a bit more about his character

Ofc: Vidya’s father is a sick man. He is insecure about his power because being an ordinary employee at a small company, a sales executive, after going to the “world’s best college” in his words is not impressive at all. He is obsessed with his dream of seeing his daughter attend the same college that he did because he believes that it is of the best quality. The college is extremely difficult to get into and the man has a lot of free time on his hand.
All that obsession, the insecurity, the false image of success in his mind drives him insane leading him to start “teaching” his daughter.

All he ever wants is for her to clear the entrance exam to get into that college, so he shuts down his emotions and puts them aside. When he’s teaching her or when he abuses her rather he doesn’t think of her as his daughter but just as a machine that needs to be wired so tightly it would do the job. He doesn’t realize that in his pursuit of something so futile, he lost something much more dear to him, his daughter. He showed her all his love till she was 11 years old but from then on he got struck by his obsession.

Obviously this doesn’t mean that what he did was acceptable because it wasn’t no matter the reasoning behind it. All this while he believes that he was doing this “for her own good” but doesn’t realize how much he harmed his relationship with his daughter.

Red: So in as much as his actions and words were cruel and abusing, in his mind it was coming from a good place because all he wanted was for his daughter to become successful and better in life than he is.

Ofc: Everybody is the hero in their story, Vidya’s father thought he was one too. There were so many other ways he could have given her a better life.

By controlling his anger, by explaining those same physics concepts to her in a better way, by encouraging her to do better. He thinks his intentions were right, he strongly believes that, but he doesn’t realize he was doing more harm than good. Shocking because his daughter confronts him about his behavior multiple times but he just can’t control himself.

Every dad wishes for their daughter to be successful but very few really put their intentions into action.

There’s also another aspect of him where he gets so overprotective of her (or perhaps he just fears that she would expose him to her friends or to another adult, he knows what he’s doing is wrong) that he doesn’t allow her to really go out into the world alone.

When the time comes, he makes sure that he always has eyes on her. He controls the kind of friends she makes, what she talks about with them, almost everything so that she shapes up into his exact version of an ideal successful woman.

Red: Wow that’s truly disturbing, but like you said everyone thinks they’re the hero in their own story. So let’s talk a little about Vidya’s mother. How does her character play into everything?

Ofc: From a young age her mother has had the reputation of being an “obedient” girl, something that was praised in their society.

Girls should be obedient, they should always help people out and most importantly they should always listen to their parents and their husbands. Because of that image that she carries she almost becomes the person she is listening to.

There was a time that her parents actually told her that she should commit suicide if she even thinks of divorcing her husband. Those were Vidya’s grandparents.

However sweet the characters can be on a day-to-day basis, their values and their ideas are very disturbing. Having such a mindset, she believes that whatever her husband does is correct simply because he is “the head of the family” and the husband.

Out of love she tries to stop the abuse for the first few times but when she gets hit by her husband as well she believes that it’s best for her to not get involved. This hurts Vidya and now she feels unloved by both of her parents and starts to grow distant.

But her mother can’t handle that because she too thinks that she did the right thing by letting her father have his way with her. Unable to handle the truth about her daughter she starts emotionally blackmailing her to try and mend the relationship. That didn’t work, they grew farther apart. Then in desperation she starts to mentally abuse her as well, gaslights her, forces her to be at home at all times so she can be close to her and fails.

In this society, the “parents are always right” so she doesn’t bother to apologize at all, and only forces her daughter into events with her or to take photos, at least so she can show the world that she is close to her daughter.

Vidya’s mother also lives for the society. She’s pretty materialistic in that way. The first thought that comes to her head before doing anything would be “what would others think of me?” and that just shows that she cares more about others thinking that she’s close with her daughter than her actually being so.

Red: So then both parents think that they are actually doing good for their daughter, when in fact they’re only damaging her.

Ofc: Yeah. Even after their daughter addresses them about this issue.

Red: Am I right to assume that the wife is afraid of her husband?

Ofc: You’re correct, she is terrified

Red: But then even though she’s terrified she still believes in her husband due to her upbringing and her worry of what society would think of her

Ofc: Yeah that’s right. She’s almost a slave to society

Red: But even through that in her own way she does love Vidya and she tries to show and care for her in her own way.

Ofc: I guess, but her love is more fake. She lives for the society so I guess she never got to really love her daughter. If she did she would’ve stopped it right? No matter what her values are, love beats everything.

Red: That’s true. Let’s talk about the main character Vidya, that’s a beautiful name by the way.

Ofc: Thank you! A lot of people have said that, Vidya means ‘knowledge’ and because of how obsessed her dad is with education he gives her that name. I decided to make sure the names were authentic and Indian.

Sop: Why didn’t I get a cool name?

Li: *shrugs*🚶🚶

Red: You did a good job. So let’s talk about Vidya, how does she feel about everything?

Ofc: Vidya is also brought up in the same kind of mentality- that parents are always right no matter what. She is brainwashed so in the beginning she thinks that all of this is normal.

She hated it but “it’s just how life is” is what she thought. It takes her years to realize that it’s not right.

In those years she was lucky enough to meet her friend Krishna and then later on her boyfriend and they help her understand what’s going on.

Red: And how does she come to the realization that she is being abused if she believed that her parents were right all these years?

Ofc: Uh oh that’s a spoiler so I’m gonna be zipped for that one.

Red: 😂😂 That’s fine, I think we’ve covered enough. Let’s do some fun questions before we end the interview.

Ofc: Ooh sure! That was intense though, it really helped me with my character analysis.

Red: Oh well I’m glad it helped, you have a really great story and I hope it gets the attention that it deserves.

Li: *sniffles* this is all too much😢Yet so good.

Red: Okay who would you rather be Thor or the new and improved version of Spider-man?

Ofc: The old mighty Thor (not the fat version)

Red: 😂 Obviously not the fat one. Would you rather go to the beach or a private island?

Ofc: A private island with my favorite people, then I can be naked and it doesn’t matter. Not into nude beaches.

Sop: Oooh I’m liking this girl😉

Li: 🙄🙄🙄

Red: Oh yeah, no, nude beaches are totally weird. Is there any book you would like to recommend to us?

Ofc: Yes! My favorite author lehualani- Majorites and Minorites.

Red: Wow this should be interesting🤔

Ofc: Oh yeah, check it out😊

Red: Thank you so much for doing this interview with us.❤

Ofc: Of course! Thanks for taking your time out to do this, it’s a great initiative to help budding authors.

Red: The pleasure was all mine. Thanks again!

Ofc: Bye!