ORANGE CITY LITERATURE FESTIVAL

Ms Paro Anand is a well-known writer who has received many awards for writing books for children. She does not write only for children but also young adults and adults, but her books for children are more popular. The thing that puts her apart is that she writes stories which have been inspired by reality. Her penchant for writing real stories came when while telling a group of children a story about domestic violence she was asked by a kid whether the story was true. She asked the kid what he thought and she got the reply that it happens in my house. Several other children also said the same thing. 

She was also asked by Dr. Abdul Kalam why she wrote such harsh stories for children and she answered that it was to make children learn to deal with reality. She stopped writing stories about ghosts and other fairy tales and sticks to write from reality.

Tanushree Poddar is a well-known Indian writer who has worked on different genres in her books. With one book related to the NDA and another one to the IMA she then took up a passion for crime fiction. She has already written two books on crime fiction and is working on the third one. From childhood, Tanushree being the eldest of siblings was drawn to storytelling to entertain her brothers and sisters. She carried this passion inside her which was thwarted when she was compelled by her father to study science as a subject.

The passion for story telling transformed into several well written books later when after marriage to an army officer she had to move from one remote place to the other. These different interesting locations were part of the inspiration for her books. While being interviewed by Sangeeta Verma she disclosed that she took up writing because she had nothing else to do. At the same time an inquisitive mind ensured that her crime fiction books were actually very intriguing and enjoyable.

Khyrunnisa A is now well-known as a writer of humorous books meant for young kids. Crocodile who ate butter chicken for breakfast was her most recent. This book is about a boy who doesn’t want any regular animals for pets. He wants to have an unusual pet and he brings home a crocodile. The story revolves around the young boy and his friends trying to hide the crocodile from the parents. There is a lot of fun that follows, there are 20 more stories in this book. Khyrunnisa has chosen different animals like snakes, turkeys, zebra, fish etc. She has written a book for adults as well, but most of her writing is for kids.

The stories show the rich imagination of the writer and the way that she has dealt with such unusual stories is par excellence. The author loves animals and the heroes in her books are usually animals.

Woof is a book written by Aparna Karthikeyan and is inspired not just by her own pet dogs but many stray dogs that she came across because of them. Her dogs are female and named Shingmo and Puchu. Right from her childhood she was fond of pets and had an assortment of animals and also earthworms as pet. She got her first pet dog at the age of 21 and then the second one at the age of 40. Both her dogs were adopted off the streets by her and due to them she started being surrounded by stray dogs. She says that earlier she was wary of stray dogs, but soon learned that they are not scary at all. They only reciprocate to the treatment that they get from humans. Woof is her story about her dogs and especially meant for kids. However, if you are a passionate animal lover then you will enjoy this book even if you are an adult.

Deepa Prasad on New Norms in Service In Conversation with Ravi Mishra

Jono Lineen is the first person who traveled the Western Himalayas solo on foot from Pakistan to Nepal. He says that for him this is has been a pilgrimage for him and while trekking the Great Himalayas was the first journey and writing the book was the second journey. Alvira diwan is a clinical psychologist and asked Jono why he chose to travel alone. According to her human beings are social beings and Jono was at that time dealing with the death of his brother.

Jono said that he was used to being alone and in fact he was not without human contact for more than three days. He was also well received by the village people wherever he went. They offered him tea and a place to sleep immediately. This would not be the case if he would be in a group of people. Usually people who travel in groups don’t get the chance to interact with the local people because they are being interactive within their own group.

Vaibhav Purandare in his book – A story of Revolution against British in India has described the quest for Independence, by many revolutionary Indian freedom fighters. If you read history books the mainly mentioned struggles of freedom were of 1857 or the struggle that was started by Mahatma Gandhi in around 1920. There is very less information regarding what happened between those periods. 

The fact is that the struggle of freedom was kept alive, by young revolutionary Vir Sawarkar. He carried out the struggle from England which was the heart of the British Empire. Many young people joined hands under the leadership of Sawarkar and some impotent British officers like Lord Wiley were assassinated. Vaibhav Purandare has narrated the names of these young people who went to England on the pretext of studying but were actually interested in the fight for freedom. They faced the atrocities of the British government, for instance Vir Sawarkar was sent to Andaman for Kala Pani for 10 years.

Panel on - Is the virtual Platform Affecting publishing and real essence of reading with Naveen Choudhary, Anuj Tiwari, Shailesh Shrivastav In Conversation with Bhuvan Gupta

This book has been written by Tuhin sharma who is not just a prolific author but also a successful politician. Clarifying the misunderstanding of people when they hear the words Ram Rajya he has said that Ram Rajya is not associated with any religion or politics. In fact the very constitution of India was based on the concept of Ram Rajya. He says Ram Rajya means a governance of the country which keeps the wellbeing of the common citizens in mind. The leadership of such a Ram Rajya keeps aside their own self and sees to the development of the country while leading from the front line.

Tuhin says that he has likened the current rule of Prime Minister Modi to Ram Rajya because of the way that he has been governing the country from the frontline. His visit to the laboratories where the Corona vaccine is being made to the decisions taken by him regarding Kashmir, all prove that he is a leader capable of bringing Ram Rajya to India and hence Tuhin has kept the title of his book – Is this Ram Rajya.

Samantak bhadra moderates a talk by Kiran Manral who is a renowned and awarded writer.Samantak bhadra is known for his poetry reading classes and he is a poet himself. He especially admires the flexibility with which Kiran manages to shift between genres. Kiran has written many books both fiction and nonfiction. Samantak admires the prolific and versatile way in which she not just writes but also conducts herself in general.

According to Kiran a day in life of a writer is quite boring and involves hard work. Every writer has to have a bread and butter profession because writing does pay for their bread and butter. Kiran lives with a lot of discipline and she says that the more disciplined you are in your personal life the more flamboyant and outgoing in your writing. She also says that the writer’s block is an excuse for people and if you indulge yourself in it you will be wasting time and your energy.