Multiple Fun

The Enemy of My Enemy is Ruddra’s attempt at interactive fiction—a fledgling genre in India. “The readers get to make choices and decide the course of the story. It’s quite exciting for readers,” says Ruddra,whose childhood was spiced up with a heavy dose of tales of dungeons and dragons. Though India has been waking up to the delights of gamebooks of late,the West had enjoyed it for decades. “Now even the Nancy Drew and Goosebump series are available in this format,” he adds.

After Scholastic asked him to write the book,deciding the book’s structure took four months. “Writing became easy,once I figured out the structure,” says the 27-year old. For this,he borrowed the character of PRD Jhabvala,who had earlier featured in one of his unfinished novellas. In The Enemy of My Enemy,Ruddra got his first full-fledged book printed. However,many of his short stories have been printed earlier while TV and film scripts have found takers. This Mumbai-based author has also been working on two novels which will be ready next year. Before that he promises to pack more action and adventure in the next book in the gamebook series.

In his next adventure,Jhabvala has to stop baboons from taking over the world. But only after he finds Magic Ink in Antarctica. Things drawn with Magic Ink come to life and words written become absolute truth. That’s definitely worth an adventure for the young Knights and Crusaders.