Sumit Menaria of Udaipur is a Chartered Accountant by profession and an author by passion. His recently released maiden work 'Tashree' is a thrilling novel on the Mystery genre. It revolves around the murder investigation of a college going girl. The involvement of a national level secret organization takes the case to a new level and indulges the reader. This agnostic approach of the story also throws light on some spiritual Hindu concepts.  The novel has already been appreciated by more than 83 thousand readers of the e-book online.  The comic based on this novel have also been read and appreciated by more than 63 thousand people.  Currently a web-series based on this novel is under production by Aditya Bhattacharya and Sameer Pittalwala.

When it comes on to writing, it is usually considered as a hobby instead of a profession. Not being a very financially rewarding indulgence, most authors prefer to pursue it along with their core vanilla profession. However, transformation of office jobs into work from home during lockdown imposed a year ago, has given budding writers a fair chance to achieve their dream. Certainly, the COVID impact has been grave all across the world. Even amateur writers weren’t untouched by it. The pandemic not only shattered economies but with the job cuts came a jittery household budget; yet it benefitted the literary industry as a whole.

The change in the behavior was probably due to closed bookstores and activeness of the online platforms. It meant all major book releases were either pushed back or postponed. It also meant that there were literally zero sales of physical copies of books during these times. In a country where physical books still constitute to around 85-90% of the total sales, the publishing industry was badly hit.  Although the time of crisis inspired many writers to pen down fiction, non -fiction and poetry. Many new authors emerged during the  lockdown.

Udaipur’s Sumit Menaria is the nearest example of how the pandemic converted into an opportunity. Sumit's debut novel 'Tashree'  has been published this month on Amazon by the well known publisher 'Manjul Publishing House' in association with online story writing platform 'Pratilipi' is A Chartered Accountant by profession, Menaria is a farmer's son from Rundera, a village in the Vallabhnagar tehsil, 45 km from Udaipur. Sumit works in Dubai. He has been interested in the literature since his childhood.

Menaria's second psychological novel 'Anamika' has also been very successful. Another Comic is under development on the storyline of this novel.

Apart from this, Menaria has also written screenplays  for short films.  The short film 'An Indian Girl' written by him has garnered more than 14 awards at the National and International Film Festival and is expected to screen on major OTT platforms. The short film which is directed by Saurabh Lakshkar stars Mrs. India and Mrs. Earth Priyanka Khurana in the lead.

A research by Nielsen Book India of Indian consumer behavior in and after lockdowns reveals two-thirds of book readers are consuming more books since lockdown began.

Earlier, Indian book readers read books or listened to audio books for an average nine hours per week. On the contrary, with onset of lockdown this has increased by seven more hours a week. A marginal improvement was also noticed in the consumption of other formats.