My name is Arif Shah, and I am from Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar (Aurangabad), Maharashtra.

I have loved writing stories since childhood.
I have been writing since I was fifteen.
After nearly thirty-one years, I am presenting one of the eleven stories I have written, The Secret of Pakistan, to you in the form of a novel.
The inspiration to write this story came to me in 2003 from filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma.
An advertisement by him appeared in the Marathi newspaper Dainik Lokmat: “झपाटलेल्या वर्माला कथा पाठवा आणि लाख रुपये बक्षीस मिळवा”
It meant: “Send a good story to renowned filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma and win a prize of one lakh rupees.”

After reading that advertisement, I began writing The Secret of Pakistan. It had a different title back then.
I tried everything I could to meet him. I sent him my scripts several times by courier and registered post, but nothing came of it.
I went around the offices of every OTT platform I could think of, Netflix, Jio Hotstar, Reliance, and others. I sent emails, too.
But no one gave me their time.
No one listened to what I had to say.
Every story I have written has been written in a cinematic format.
My dream was to make films.
In 1995, I became a member of the Film Writers Association.
At that time, the SWA office was located at Ranjit Studio in Dadar.
My SWA membership number, 5284, registered in the name of Arif Shah, still exists in their records.
Over the past thirty-one years, I have travelled to Mumbai more than two hundred times.

There is hardly a director, producer, or actor whom I did not try to meet.
I went to every office, every home, every studio.
Forget listening to my story — no one even gave me a minute of their time.
And this is not just my story.
This is the story of every new writer.
Out of frustration, I once thought,

“Now I'll make the film myself.”
But that turned out to be my biggest mistake.

In Mumbai, several people cheated me, and over twenty years, I ended up wasting a huge amount of money.
Many times, in anger, I even burned my own stories.
But they never disappeared from my mind.
The more I tried to run away from them, the more they pulled me back.
And every time they returned, they came back stronger than before.

Whenever I watched films built around the same old stories flop at the box office, the writer inside me would awaken again.

And I would once again start rewriting those stories that had already been reduced to ashes.

The idea of writing a novel came to me in 2025, when I finally felt that Bollywood's door had closed for me.

If I receive the support of patriotic readers,
if you like my story,
and if I succeed in entertaining you,

then I will continue writing.

Otherwise, this will be my first and last novel.

I will consign the rest of my stories to the flames once again and free myself from this tangled world of stories.

So, my dear friends, my patriotic brothers...

If you feel that I have written something different,
and if you enjoyed it,
please support me and leave a review.

If you don't like the story, criticize it openly.

I never turn away from the truth.

The truth may be bitter, but to me, it tastes sweet.

I have made every effort to tell this story in the best way I could and make it easy for you to understand.

Perhaps I could have made it even better by going into greater detail.

But I was tired.

I wanted to hand this story over to you as quickly as possible and finally step away from this world of stories.

Now, I leave the verdict in your hands.

You can make it a hit...
or a flop.
If you give me a chance to write again,
I will not disappoint you.
I will do everything I can to live up to your trust and faith in me.

Jai Hind.

Yours,
Arif Shah