Need for young writers

Literature has always been a wonderful form of entertainment and education. A dialogue in the film ‘Dead Poets Society’ (1989) goes like this. “We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Undoubtedly, things like stories, poetry, books, arts have a great capability to de-stress us and rejuvenate life. Sadly, today, it is mostly games like Mini Militia or Clash of Clans or the all alluring social media that teenagers find entertainment and high-spirits in.

The National Readership Youth Survey organized by National Book Trust in association with National Council of Applied Economic Research in 2010 reveals that only 25% of the Indian youth i.e., 89 million population are some kind of readers. The rest seventy five percent are not.

In any society when learning happens, economic development takes place. Particularly for democracies, knowledge beyond basic literacy is a must. The government can only control the present unlike the youth which can control the future. Better informed youth is always an asset to the nation.

Richard Ford is so correct when he said ‘Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.’ After a good amount of reading, it wouldn’t be tough to write for an average teenager. With a growing number of readers, we can certainly see growing number of writers or more particularly young writers.

And the audience has always been there for any kind of writings. If teenagers can find that their passion is writing at such a tender age, the way their latent can be refined in the next few more years can be so good.

The Indian publishing industry or the market for writers is not so an easy place to grow considering the fact that around 90,000 new titles enter the market every year. But that should not frighten the young writers because they would not take up full-time writing already and there are hassle-free platforms like ‘Kindle Self Publishing’ where books written can be published as ebooks without any investment at all.

I've been reading books of different genres for several years. Every time I read one, I used to tell to myself that I should be a writer one day. But God has been extra kind in turning the dream real so soon though it came with its own hardships. The idea of making of a book cropped up last year. And then after a good amount of sweat and blood in a journey in the world of words for an academic year, my first book titled ‘200% INDIAN’ with a by-line ‘innocence to innovation’ finished.

The book is on former President of India and Missile Man, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam and it was written with a co-author Prithvi Raj. Both of us are pretty much nineteen years young and are doing our Bachelor of Arts at Narayana IAS Academy.

The time taken to write the book was one year, managing both college and the project. Finally, it was launched this Thursday which was the second remembrance day of Dr Kalam, amidst our two thousand civil services co-aspirants at our Academy.

The work is basically of semi Non-fiction with stories associated to different stages of Kalam’s life as a child, Scientist, Teacher and President. We wanted to remind our two thousand co-aspirants about the ideals and visions of Kalamji. Most of the books on Kalam are a little tough to understand for young people like us so we wanted to make this biography of his simple and interesting by writing fiction on it. We did not deviate from the primary facts but all the persons and incidents may not be true too in the book.

The book starts with his passing away in IIM Shillong and the chapters in the book throw light on different prominent incidents of his life. A chapter titled ‘Teacher to President: A Bahubalian Changeover’ tells how when Kalam was working as an honourary professor in Anna University, the then Prime Minister Vajpayee calls and tells him that the nation needs him as the Rashtrapathi and the events leading up to his becoming the President of the world’s largest democracy.

The idea of the book was explained to the college management and subsequently, the Narayana Group gave its nod. It was published by Narayana IAS Academy as an internal and non-commercial publication.

The book is not kept for sale and no copyrights taken as the idea was that it should be an open work in public domain. And ironically, the copyright statement in the book reads like this, ‘Any part of this publication can be reproduced, shared or saved, in any form by any means, without the permission of the publishers for academic and personal purposes.’ Kalam didn’t want knowledge to have barriers.

We finished writing our first book and saw it getting published and launched. We will be back to our academics in full measure now. We will complete our Bachelor’s degree and appear for civil services. Life would go on. But now we know what else we can do too. Writing made us better...

“If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, go write it.” - Beverly Cleary (John Michael loves to write, watch films and travel to witness different cultures. He enjoys poetry and occasionally expresses himself through it. Currently doing his Bachelor of Arts at Narayana IAS Academy, he aspires to do his best to the nation as a civil servant. The ebook of 200% Indian can be found at 200pcindian.wordpress.com )