A few flashes from the past yesterday led me to think of trying to capture who might have, if at all, influenced the characters in It Can’t Be You. This is by no means a comprehensive list. It’s more a collection of thoughts as they came by. Here goes…”Reggie” Rege perhaps came from a Col. Rege who I knew in the early 70’s. One of my School friends, an Old Lawrencian served in his Regiment.
- I see some shades of my own father that have crept into the making of Col. Belliappa.
- You either love or hate a boarding school- you can’t be in between. I for one greatly enjoyed my years in Lovedale but I know of a few – in Lovedale and elsewhere- who detested boarding school life.
- The Gorkha Regiment had to be brought in because of the influence of John Masters in my writings.
- A young OL (Old Lawrencian) was killed as a 2nd Lt in the 62 War against China. There was a plaque in his memory in the School Dining Hall. This influenced me deeply.
- Perhaps Col. Pratap Sinha got his name from that of two close friends at different points of time!
There could be more but these came readily to mind……
Prem Rao : Stories from a Story Teller 
The past never goes away completely, does it! When you write, flashes of long forgotten memories and incidents surface from unknown depths of your mind, giving substance to the characters and embellishment to the incidents being narrated in your writing. After all, nothing is completely new. Every word a writer writes has its genesis somewhere or the other.
Very true , Vivek. These are things that make writing so fascinating!