"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
“Fly till they shoot you down” is tale of an intensely personal journey, so unique as to be almost unbelievable. Arriving in London with 4 pounds in his pocket, spending his second night in a cold telephone booth, his adult life started on the worst possible foot that you could imagine. Everything that could go wrong, it did for him. However, all this was not enough to curb the fighter in Igloo, as after every blow dealt by Fortune, he had the mental resilience to shake it off and rise again. Ultimately, things began to come together – at times in almost fairy tale fashion. The skies cleared, but dark clouds almost always were there on the horizon. They have defined Igloo’s life for all of nearly seven decades. Trials and tribulations have challenged him at almost every turn.
The book charts his journey from his arrival in chilly London a few days after his 21st birthday, and takes you on a roller coaster of a journey across the oilfields of Digboi, the struggles at Kolkata, the challenges of London and beyond to the love of his family, the thrills of being a self-made man – all in all, a simply amazing smorgasbord of life itself.
At the end of the book, the reader will be left wondering – Could all this really have been true? How is it possible that one person travelled all these roads, up and down, so topsy-turvy, in one lifetime? This book is as honest an attempt to capture this scarcely unbelievable journey, as could be.
Partha Ghosh
Having been through a difficult childhood and a challenging start to his adult life, Partha Ghosh (Igloo) has never, ever, given up on life, and his fiercely independent spirit. However difficult the cards dealt to him may have been, his never-say-die attitude and indomitable spirit has taken through stormy waters where lesser beings would have, simply put, just given up and drowned. They say fiction imitates life; few film scripts can even come close to the challenges faced, and overcome, by Igloo.
Academically, he started off as a bright young man earning a First Division in his Higher Secondary exams with ‘letter’ marks in Maths – which was quite a rarity, those days. Family issues and the resultant turmoil badly affected him thereafter, in a way forcing him to strike out on his own in a foreign land, enticed by dream merchants whose walk fell far short of their talk. Literally from scratch, as a linen boy in a roadside joint, he rose surely if not very steadily, to be the owner of one of Arnhem’s most popular restaurants before shifting gears to areas as diverse as interpreting between speakers of different languages at the European Border Control, working closely with physically challenged people, victims of domestic abuse – you name it, and Igloo has done it.
Along with his lifelong companion, Mousumi and his (almost) twin brother, Bigloo, Igloo is now happily settled and free to pursue his passions – wild life photography and safaris.
