During his stint at Dr Reddy’s, Bhasme expanded his side hustle. A trained kathak and contemporary style dancer, he began offering dance classes. Hyderabad’s eight-year-old Jia Thakur, who  won the Dance India Dance championship in 2018, is one of his students. “My boss at the time read my earlier book and urged me to take up writing more seriously. So, I decided to take a true incident and build  a story around it.” His novel, As Death Stared Back, revolves around Renuka Shinde and Seema Mohan Gavit, half-sisters convicted of the killing of five children and the kidnapping of 13 others between 1990 and 1996. The kidnapped children have never been found. Shinde and Gavit also acquired the dubious distinction of being the first women to be handed a death sentence in 2011. Last week, there was a twist in the tale when the Bombay High Court commuted the death sentence of the two sisters to life imprisonment. They are currently lodged in Yerawada Central Prison. “I pursued the story much like a journalist; I went to the prison, traced their connections, met with lawyers like Ujwal Nikam to understand the case better.” Bhasme’s idea was to explore the psychology of criminals, and learn more about what motivates someone to commit the darkest of crimes. “These women, in the words of Nikam, have stone-cold eyes. They have also harassed fellow prisoners, which is why they are now in solitary confinement. But there’s no remorse. How does the conscience die?” 

According to Bhasme, he went about the novel as he would with a scientific project: created a questionnaire, collected data, analysed it, drew inferences and then got down to writing it. His latest work, 7 hours at Bhata Road, has been chosen as Amazon’s bestseller of 2020, and is being made into a film featuring Vatsal Seth and Ishita Seth.

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Over the years, Bhasme has been involved in the making of API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient), the biologically active component of a drug product (tablet, capsule, injectable) that produces the intended effects, and its formulation. His goal is clear: both his writing and scientific experiments need to have a social impact. “While the medicines have an obvious health impact, I’m using books as a means to create awareness about the mind. I even earned a diploma in forensic psychology and psychotherapy for this.” 

His Instagram account @bhasmewords features comics around mental health issues, and it’s not uncommon for him to receive SOS and DMs (direct messages) from followers.  “I’m not a therapist. I respond by guiding them to the right professionals. I’m just a guy who is always happy to help.”