It was that familiar corner of Crossword book store, those familiar faces and all the more familiar cookies doing the rounds. The only difference was the host who looked a tad slimmer than the last time.
It was Anita Nair’s book launch at the Crossword book store on Residency Road on Friday. According to the author, her book launches have become a biennial ritual, giving her an opportunity to catch up with old friends.
And for others, it is a chance to get up close with the author and browse through yet another masterpiece she has created.
The book
At the launch of her third book for children, Living next door to Alise, this author of four books for adults said it is fun, at the same time, a great challenge to write for children. Anita says, “I have realised while writing this book that when we write for children, we are writing for the reader. The intention is to amuse them, unlike writing an adult novel where the author is trying to satisfy her ego and not the reader.”
Living Next Door to Alise is about a precocious nine-year-old boy Siddharth who likes to stay indoors with a book instead of going to school or prancing around the garden chasing dragonflies. He befriends an elephant, Alise aka Aishwarya, who can talk, read, do arithmetic, stand on her head, sit on a wall and play cricket.
Anita had students from the school Parikrma among the audience. At the end of the reading session, each student had sketched his/her own version of Siddharth and Alise. When one had Alise in a field, another one had her playing with Siddharth in a park. Yet another even had an intelligent Alise working on the Internet.
The author says the story of Siddharth was inspired by her nephew Siddharth, who was equally precocious, and was tamed by the author through different episodes of a story she narrated to him during her 10-day stay at Kerala. “
By the end, I had a story ready. The only thing left was to sit down and write a book,” she says.
And with Smokie’s popular song playing the spark plug, a very amusing story with an equally interesting name was in place.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
