A group of students of Sloka Waldorf School, are on cloud nine. They — some as young as 11 — are looking forward to the release of their first book, a collection of short stories titled Incandescence. The book is a product of a year’s hard work under the guidance of writer-mentors Hemant Kumar and Ruchir Mittal, of the Delhi-based publishing house Quill Club Writers.
And besides the book being published, the 24 children say that the experience gifted them with a changed perspective on things and they also now have a greater respect for professional writers.
Incandescence has a range of colourful narratives, from Maoist hostage situations to travelling magicians. In fact, the story on the magician troupe left the gang wondering if Dhoom 3 writers had stolen it. But the writers of Way Beyond Magic, however, are taking the similarities lightly. “Yes, there are similarities and we started working on the idea before Dhoom 3 was released,” say Neha and Ojasvani.
The youngest student, Vrinda, 11, who along with Sunhita wrote the piece Extraordinary Knowledge, a story about a blind boy, his dreams and their interpretations, says, “I have always enjoyed writing, but the workshop helped us put ideas into a narrative and a timeline. Guidance helped.”
The students were part of the complete process — ideating to voting for stories pitched and even editing. So having read all the stories, most students picked Wheel of Destiny as a favourite. The authors Anjali, 12, and Arushi, 13, narrate a story of an artistic child growing up in a scientific environment around scientist-doctor parents. “Her art is stolen when she is 12. So she gives up painting and becomes a researcher. But even then, her discovery comes under the threat of being stolen by a colleague. She decides she will not let this happen again,” they say.
Authors are often considered solitary beings and while working in teams of two was enjoyable to a few long time friends, duos like Anjali and Arushi admit, “We fought more than we wrote. It was a lot of hard work. But still we got to bunk classes.”
