Our Own Times

Shahi’s book is inspired by a real life incident that took place on Valentine’s Day. “I was with my best friend,who happens to be a girl and another friend saw us and presumed we were a couple. We were ‘just friends’,so,I began writing an article that developed into a 264-page book,” he says,adding that his book is funny,sad,honest and straight from the heart. “Friends make up your life at this stage and my book is about the exuberance of teenage years,modern ethos,influences of society and a realistic take on life through the eyes of a teenager,” he says,having already planned a sequel.

Verse comes easy to Janhavi Malhotra,whose first book,Aloft on Wings of Grit,an anthology of her poems,was published by Little Magic Words. Right now,Malhotra is writing more poems and short stories. “It’s an extension of the feelings that I portrayed in Wings of Grit,which is about a caterpillar’s steady determination to soar into the blue,” she says,adding that her poems deal with separation,poverty,child labour,old age and death. “Poetry comes naturally to me,and I am inspired by people and life around me. Pain is a good thing as it reminds you that you are alive and capable of feeling,” she says. Short stories,smiles the Class XII student of Vivek High School,are a little tough to write,but she always finds space and time for her passion.

Life at Lawrence school,Sanawar is what Tishaa Khosla portrayed in her best-selling book Pink and Black. Her debut book,published by Rupa and Co,sold over one lakh copies and changed her life. “Even though it is fiction,it is about real people and real issues. My readers tell me they can relate to the book as if it’s their story,” says Khosla,who was 18 when the book released. She always wrote a diary and when it came to a book,nothing seemed more interesting than her teen years. “The book is not just about me but all characters are from my school days,” she says,adding that she will soon write another teen novel.

After a decade of writing poems that mourned the loss of her father and sister,city girl Shirin Mann opened a new chapter with Behind Closed Doors. Mann,a resident of Sector 11 lost her father Sunit Inder Pal Singh Mann early in life and just when the family was coming to terms with his death,her kid sister Pukhraj passed away. Even though she only 12,Mann stood strong for her mother Beenu Mann and brother Angad. Along the way,she picked up the pen and started writing verses. “I would write what I felt. It started with penning a couple of lines which soon began to stretch into stanzas and before I realised it,I was writing complete poems,” shares the 23-year-old. The book is a compilation of 40 poems from the over 100 that she has written over the last ten years.