A ten-year old wonder girl writes a 72-page book ‘The Mysterious Virus’ just to gift to her friends and teachers. In the process, she becomes one of the youngest authors in India to come up with a book on science fiction. Vipanchi Nayak had a simple wishlist — she wanted to do something different for her 10th birthday and she came up with the idea of a book and of devoting it to causes close to her heart.
For someone that young she had a good business sense too. She wanted money for the causes she espouses, one of which is to feed the poor people she sees at the temple waiting for food and alms. She was told authors get royalties on books and she wanted that money so she could feed the poor and also look after animals.
Her mother Chitra P. Torvi and father Vinayak Nayak were sources of her inspiration. They encouraged her in her writing adventure and even found a publisher for it in Chennai’s Norton Press. The book came out as early as last year but was formally launched only on February 1when Puducherry celebrated its heritage and held the “Pondicherry Heritage Festival”.
The Nayaks were born and brought up in Bengaluru and moved to Puducherry only three years ago and that was to find the best education for their daughters Vipanchi and Viyona at The Study, a school located in a calm place of absolute peace. Their elder daughter seemed to flourish in the atmosphere.
The young author was welcomed as the chief guest of the Women’s Day celebration at Idhaya women’s college of arts and science in Pondicherry. She gave an inspirational speech on women empowerment while addressing 1,600 college students. During the Children’s Day celebration at the Raj Nivas, she was felicitated by Lt. Governor of Puducherry, Dr. Kiran Bedi.
In a series of such events celebrating a young author, she was invited by a book store in Puducherry and a school in Cuddalore district where she addressed children about her experience as an author. The Rotary club of Bangalore came to hear about her and arranged two events, where too she received standing ovations after her speeches.
The young author had a dream to become a Paleontologist. It was while browsing the internet that she realised her inherent love for animals. Her creative urges had also seen her writing poetry and her first book was actually a collection of her poems. The sci-fi book came handy to focus her varied interests and she thought up the tale of two friends who were colleagues working with the CBI.
The storyline depicts a sudden virus outbreak in an imaginary city and the CBI agent’s dedicated efforts to solve it. Funa and Mynah, Mr. George, Mr. David Brown and Ms Alice are the characters in the book. The author brings a riddle to the climax on whether to punish the least expected person who seems to be the culprit.
“Her book is set in a town she may have imagined out of her experience after visiting places like Bengaluru, Pondicherry, and some places in Europe,” explains mother Chitra, who is the girl’s friend, philosopher and guide. “Before, I used to write on superheroes”, the author shared while explaining her capability now as a more mature writer looking back at her ‘kiddish’ comic book writing.
She is an promising reader too. “Write something related to your past and what happened with you because, you can explain it better,” Vipanchi says as advice to potential authors. Among her ambitions is to meet the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and her favourite movie star Salman Khan and gift them her books.
The Study l’ecole Internationale gave her the space for learning and how to explore the creative power of each and every human and feel the motivation to do something really effective. Apart from fun games, the treasure hunts around Mahabalipuram beaches, library periods, puppet shows, designing sessions, ‘tête-á-tête’ sessions were what constituted her school background from which she drew motivation to become a writer. A related activity, which has also become a hobby for her, is to collect attractive bookmarks and to design more of them from her imagination.
Her previous school stint at Presidency, where Vipanchi studied until the second standard, left an emotional scar as she was separated from her best friend Ashmita, who was twice as tall as she was. Removing the virus of sadness from the mind is indeed in her thoughts even as she is into the process of writing her next book, the topic for which is still secret to the young author.
