Long story short

Pics: samrat bandodkar

He was forced to leave his ancestral home in Cortalim after a wily builder tricked his ailing father into selling it for a pittance. Now a resident of Dhobi Talao in Mumbai, Shorty Gomes makes his living as a private eye taking on cases dealing with everything from soulless businessmen and ugly politics to toxic godmen.

Back in the limelight after 22 long years (although he actually started out somewhere in the early 80s), Gomes hasn't aged at all. His investigative skills remain keen as ever and his trademark brown fedora is still the same. And why not? Gomes is but a figment of imagination. A fictional protagonist created by Ahmed Bunglowala, a retired PR professional and self-confessed buff of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction.

“Although I wrote my first Shorty Gomes story somewhere in the early 80s, it was only in 1993 (after many many rejections) that it was realised in print. Rupa & Co published three of my long-short stories with a print run of 3000 copies in an edition called, The Days and Nights of Shorty Gomes,” informs the 65 year old author, adding, “Shorty Gomes may well be a figment of my imagination, but his cases are very real and mirror the grim realities of life in the Big City.” Which Bunglowala knows all too well, having worked with corporates in Bombay and Pune for a large part of his life before moving to Goa five years ago with his wife Vijaya who shares his passion for books. Both are regulars at the central library in Patto. “My wife and I are both avid readers of non-fiction writing – memoirs, travelogues, essays. I have just finished reading Avirook Sen’s superb account of the Aarushi-Hemraj murders and am currently half way through a “financial” thriller called Flash Boys by Michael Lewis,” he says.

So where did the idea for Shorty Gomes come from? “I used to read a lot of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler (two towering American writers of the hard-boiled school of crime fiction whose books have been made into movies) which I try my best to emulate,”

But writing in general and detective fiction, in particular, is not the easiest thing to do. The detective and crime genre is very populous and it is extremely important for new writers like Bunglowala to set themselves apart. “This you do by developing a distinctive and very personalised style of writing, which comes from practice. Writing is not about ordering pizzas and beers on your smart phone!”

Living with his wife and three dogs in a small rented cottage in Verla Canca near Parra for the last three years, Bunglowala's advice to budding writers would be this: “Don’t be impatient. Learn the writing craft first. Then keep hammering away at the keyboard. It is also a good idea to write your first draft with pen on paper.”

Bunglowala's “refreshed” 2015 version of Shorty Gomes was also an agonising, if delightful experience. He tried several avenues to publish his book, but after more than a few dismissals, and just when things had hit a “psychological rock bottom”, Bunglowala received a call from Frederick Noronha of Goa 1556, an alternative book publishing initiative launched in 2007. “Frederick suggested we try out the crowd-funding option to partly finance the book. And it worked like a miracle. Within weeks we had over 30 friends and well-wishers backing us,” he says.

Bunglowala's book ‘Shorty Gomes: Vintage Crime Stories’ will be launched at Assagao on November 2, followed by a formal launch at the Goa Arts and Literary Fest (GALF) in December after which it will be made available at a number of outlets across Goa. “Eventually, it will also be available in select bookshops in Bombay, Pune and Bangalore. Besides this we are also working on how to do on-line sales on Flipkart or Amazon,” he informs.

collection of short stories, memoirs, and essays. “God willing, book sales of ‘Shorty Gomes’ will pay for the production of my next book,” he says with a hopeful smile.