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| With the finisher medal at Satara Hill Half Marathon 2025 |
They say when you have a need, you get an answer too. In this phase of my life, I have been on the lookout for people who are brave and courageous- a certain kind of brave. I've been looking specifically for people who have changed their lives drastically and been strong enough to choose to make an earning from their passion or passions rather than the regular 9-5 work routine. Since I'm also at a crossroads in my life, the subject came to me on its own. All the years of working in a stable job gave me the general idea when looking at most people doing a routine job, however well paid or comfortable the scenario, it always seems to come at the cost of losing time and not achieving something that the person always dreamt of. Sure it's not a possibility for everyone to do what they please as we have expenses and financial burdens, but many of the reasons we need to absolutely work is also that as we earn more, we spend more too. During all this searching for individuals, I was focused on my female contacts however, life sent me a great example and this time it was a man who literally was man enough to take a leap of faith.
My post today is of this man who was comfortably settled in his routine (even though it was not a 9-5 job). Despite having built a business for nearly two decades that was doing very well, he took the plunge to follow his true passion.
Meet Neil D'Silva, author of 17 books, screenwriter, mentor to several budding writers and athlete and runner of marathons.
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| With his books from 2015 to now - a ten-year journey as an author |
Now, opting out of your job that you may or may not like is one thing, because in the end you're working for someone else. Neil, however, was running his own coaching classes in Malad (East), Mumbai where he grew up. He started Disha Educentre in May 1998 soon after completing his MSc, where he taught about 200 students a year. He loved teaching and it was something he had also put his passion, sweat, and hard work into. After about two decades in 2014, during a vacation in Goa with his family, he had a talk with his wife, Anita. Sitting on Calangute beach, sipping wine, he bravely let his heart speak out to her and told her he wanted to try writing a novel. His wife, who was also teaching in their classes, was happy for him to try. She knew that he had the necessary talent in him. This was all the stimulus Neil needed to get started on the first draft of a novel idea that he already had on his mind.
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| Signing the copies of his book Yakshini at the Rupa Publications warehouse |
Growing up, Neil had seen his father, Philip Neri, managing a side hustle while working
full-time as a sales executive for a cycle company. He freelanced as a translator for Hindi movie scripts to English. These would be later inserted as subtitles for foreign markets. Those days, his father typed on his Remington manual typewriter. Neil, then just a teenager in school, regularly assisted him by reading out the scripts. While still very young, Neil began to understand the structure of script-writing. He also saw his father translate scripts of around 600 movies in the 80s and 90s, including horror movies of the Ramsay brothers such as Veerana and Dak Bangla. One could say that writing, reading, and listening to the tapping on the typewriter gave Neil a fertile ground to let his imagination loose.
Once when Neil was in the 7th standard, around 12 years of age, an agency brought a major movie to be translated. The movie was to be released in a month and there was a strict deadline for the translation. This was the Amitabh Bachan movie, Shahenshah. It was a tough call because Neil’s father had to travel to his native place for a work emergency. Somehow, young Neil worked up the courage and convinced his father that he would do the task and progress on the script as much as possible. That would give his father enough time to correct and complete the work when he came back. In his father’s absence, Neil translated nearly 60% of the script. When his father returned, there was enough time to finish and send the completed, translated script. This experience shaped Neil’s future career as an author and screenwriter.
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| Neil's author journey so far |
Neil remembers his father being a bibliophile, growing up in a house full of books and being allowed to read anything he wanted, including Horror. Even in his school age, he read classics such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and almost all of Edgar Allan Poe’s works, all of which became strong influences for him in later life.
After his post graduation in Organic Chemistry in 1998, Neil started his coaching classes, Disha Educentre. The next eight years were devoted in building the institute and earning financial stability, during which period he also bought his first apartment (a 3 BHK, in 2002) and got married (in 2005). Neil also enrolled at the Alliance Française for three years to study French, which was in line with his plans to settle abroad, but he eventually decided to continue living in India.
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| Neil after a run with his running group, Fitpage |
In 2005, Neil discovered the SEO content writing scene that had just entered India. The internet was booming and the world was getting smaller and more reachable. He found writing gigs on websites like Scriptlance (now defunct) and Get a Freelancer (now renamed Freelancer), which invited professionals to bid on projects from employers across the world. Neil won his first two projects simultaneously (an American website requiring articles on dog breeds, and another quiz website that needed a 1,000 quizzes to be created on the Harry Potter universe, which had already become a phenomenon). These projects got him a fair amount of income, and good reviews, which encouraged him to apply for more writing jobs. In the period between 2008-10, he handled around 50 clients from around the world, providing them high-quality articles for their websites on a daily basis. In 2009, he earned a major project again from an American client, to write 24 400-word articles a day on the topic of drug rehabilitation. For six months, the duration of the project, Neil did not miss a single day of writing! The project paid him well enough to pay off the EMIs on his apartment.
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| Neil being felicitated as a speaker at the Media and Journalism meet at MIT-World Peace University, Pune |
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| Holding the audiences spellbound with horror folklore stories at Kukdukoo Children's Fest |
When I compare this feat to my current writing, I can now see what a novelist does a day versus what I do in a day and it's really a lot! Obviously, with a mortgage on his house to pay off and expenses adding up, Neil was super happy earning that kind of good money.
However, at a deeper level he also probably saw the potential he had to make it bigger on the writing scene. An idea of writing under his own name took birth in his mind. Added to that, he could see that each year, his students were doing well after having passed out and many had travelled across the world while his life had not really moved. On another level, I think Neil came to such an understanding because he had already started checking out from the teaching scene.
So, as I stated earlier, Neil discussed with his wife and wrote his first horror novel, Maya's New Husband, which he self-published on Amazon KDP on Jan 3, 2015. It turned out to be an immediate best-seller in its category, staying in the top 10 position on the Amazon India horror charts for close to two years, and earning a movie interest.
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| Backstage with the stalwarts of the horror genre- paranormal investigator Sarbajeet Mohanty, Neil, directors Vishul Furia and Patrick Graham, psychic Pooje Vijay, founder of Khooni Monday, Divay Agarwal |
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| Neil relaxing after an exciting session of analyzing horror stories with the students of MICA University, Ahmedabad |
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| With the audiences at a popular literary event where Neil spoke about horror in Indian Folklore |
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| Neil with the teachers and students after conducting a horror-writing workshop at a local school |
Horror became the genre Neil specialised in. His subsequent books worked well too and now Neil had had the start that he had only dreamt of until then. Within a year, he closed his coaching centre and started writing for himself full time. His wife supported him fully and took on a job in a school as a teacher to let him live his dream fully. Meanwhile, their children, Gilmore and Felicia, were growing up too.
In 2019, Neil made the next leap in the literary world. He got his first traditional publisher, two in fact, simultaneously. Both Yakshini and Haunted were published by Rupa Publications and Penguin India simultaneously in October 2019. Next year, in 2020, he published The Spirits Talk to Me with Hachette, and then embarked on writing The Fearless Four series with Puffin, of which the first two books released in 2022 (Playthings: Toys of Terror) and 2025 (Joyrides: Carnival of Creeps). Meanwhile, Neil also gave a TEDx talk, was invited to various institutions across India to speak on writing his genre, including IIT Kanpur, IIT Guwahati, and others, and invited to feature on hugely popular podcasts, including The Ranveer Show and Khooni Monday’s Ankhon Dekhi.
Now, though the writing had grown in leaps and bounds, Neil hadn’t prepared for one consequence. It began showing in 2017-18: his writing career made him homebound. Luckily for Neil he would still follow the normal family routine of waking up with the family as he was now responsible to take care of their younger child who was still going to school. But not having enough physical activity definitely started showing up in Neil's body as he started putting on a lot of weight. He started realising that he was getting bigger because his clothes wouldn't fit and the weighing scale was not kind anymore. He also started experiencing chest pains. This brought on a visit to a famous cardiologist, who ran several tests on him. Fortunately, Neil heart was in good shape, it was only his lifestyle that needed to change.
This happened during the pandemic times. Neil made the most of it, being stuck inside his home. He started following fitness channels on YouTube and devoted himself to working out 3-4 hrs every day, at home. He took up cardio exercises, kickboxing, and mild strength training to start with. He was large and heavy, and it was difficult to get the moves right, but he did not give up. Simultaneously, he began to clean up his diet.
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| A complete physical overhaul |
Slowly, the magic began to happen. He started tracking his weight and started becoming fitter. When the lockdowns were relaxed, he took up walking with his wife in a local park. One day, he just started running while on a walk. He wasn't good at it and stopped quickly. But, he kept adding three to ten strides of a jog in some metres of his walk. He realised soon enough that running gave him more pleasure than pain, and more than that were the rewards when the sweat glistened on his skin. One day, he ran a whole kilometer at a stretch and Boom! he now wanted to do more and see what his body would and could do.
Now running alone, he started running from Malad to Kandivli on the inside roads, a distance of 10 km every day. In 2022, Decathlon Malad announced a running club. He signed up! He ran his first 5 km race with them, which he covered at a respectable 27 minutes.
Meanwhile, his weight loss took a phenomenal turn. He got down from 86 kg to 64 kg, with his waist size going down from 36 inches to 29 inches. He was now a full-fledged runner! He signed up on Strava and posted his runs regularly, and soon the PBs (Personal Bests) piled on.
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| Just another half marathon practice run on a weekday! |
In 2023, Neil started running with a group called Fitpage, where he connected with coaches and several running friends. He understood the game. He became more serious about running. After successfully running several local races, including the Vasai-Virar Half Marathon, Navy Run, Pune Hill Marathon, Neil ran the Satara Hill Half Marathon for the first time in 2024 and finished at a respectable 2:09 h. In the same year, in the Malshej Ghat Half Marathon, he ran the route which was little under 21 km in 1:47 h, which gave him a second place on the podium in his age category. Later, in Jan 2025, Neil ran his Personal Best (PB) at the Tata Mumbai Marathon 2025 in 1:51 h.
As of now, Neil’s longest run was 35 km at the Tata Ultra Marathon in Lonavala in Feb 2025, and in August 2025, he ran 30 km at the Goa Hell Race, both of which were severely challenging competitions.
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| Neil during his 11km x 11days challenge on Independence Day |
In February 2026 he will attempt his first Full Marathon of 42 km at the Tata Mumbai Marathon and he has been placed in the Wave A. That means he has been placed amongst the best and he feels the pressure to give his best. All this comes easily on these occasions because Neil trains 4 days a week and trains minimum 10 km on each day, adding a variety of runs such as tempos, intervals, strides, hill repeats, and a considerable amount of easy runs.
Neil advocates the importance of strength training for all runners. Though he does not go to a gym presently, he works out with an entire setup at home, which includes a bench press, dumbbells, resistance bands, and other basic equipment. His workouts include HIIT, cardio, weightlifting, simple calisthenics, and he occasionally does what started him in the game—kickboxing.
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| Sweating it out at a Hyrox bootcamp |
Neil considers himself to be a hybrid athlete. He enjoys Running and the Strength workouts equally. He recently participated in a Bootcamp for #Hyrox and will participate in a proper #Hyrox event in its next Mumbai schedule. Meanwhile, he’s also eyeing other similar events such as the Yoddha race, which is a simplified desi version of #Hyrox.
India is getting fitter both collectively and individually, and I find it very encouraging and motivating myself. Neil's story is a symbol of how running or for that matter any physical activity can transform one physically and also be a vent for letting out one's stress, frustration and getting out of one's head. In Neil's case, he writes dark stuff and can return to a balanced feeling by countering all the negative things he weaves on paper with the positive endorphins that flow through his veins while working out. I think all of us can benefit from sport in one way or the other. We don't need to run marathons or become obsessed with a particular activity. It’s enough if we're getting out there and taking it cool one step at a time.
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| From couch-hugger to daily runner: 2019 to 2025 |
You can discover Neil D'Silva's journey on his website (https://NeilDSilva.in/). His writing style includes a cocktail of contemporary and Indian Folklore and the books' sales are evidence of people enjoying his unique take on the horror genre. His upcoming work includes Ghost Whispers (Rupa), Diary of a Paranormal Investigator (HarperCollins), and the third book in The Fearless Four series.
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| Neil with his wife Anita and children Gilmore and Felicia |
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| Neil and his wife Anita |
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| A 23-year-old Neil with his father, Philip Neri D'Silva, on the inauguration day of his coaching institute, Disha Educentre |
I point out that I can't read horror even as an adult. I guess to each one their own. But I raise my glass and toast this man who taught me that you can not only change your life for your passion once and make it a success, you can do it multiple times and still find yourself evolving. Life is definitely rosy for those who can face the occasional thorn.
Some photos of Neil's transformations
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