Try wandering up the teen section of a bookstore, and chances are, all you’re going to find is romance, thriller, fantasy – or any combination of these fiction categories thereof! And before you draw any conclusions about the reading preferences of teens, I would recommend you talk to someone in that age group.
Most teens go through the same emotional roller coaster of heartbreaks, euphoria, angst, fear and frustration that we adults do. However, and quite surprisingly, most of these themes continue to remain “under-represented” in popular works of literature – feels 17-year-old newbie author, Naima Kalra Gupta.
In her first book, Seventeen Takes, which is a collection of stories and memoirs, Gupta writes about ideas that matter to teenagers of the 21st century.
Gupta, who is a student at Delhi Public School, R K Puram, talks about how writing gives some coherence to her thoughts. Through the protagonist of her stories called Izra, Gupta goes on to reveal aspects of her own journey in so far as how she still struggles to figure out what to do with her life, how she laments the loss of childhood, how she comes to terms with changing beliefs and develops new ideas with respect to her city, country and God.
When I started reading Seventeen Takes, I was hoping for it to be a coming-of-age book which it is not – and that is as much as the author mentions at the very beginning. Gupta’s writing is ruminative, especially as she tries to come to terms with her true self. To quote her:
As I turn the pages of the book, I find her tone getting more explorative as if she is trying to figure out why she is the way she is, and among other things, she recognises the role that her beloved city has played into sculpting her very being.
“Every aspect of city life cultivates…vanity…and an inherent sense of entitlement,” she says, and goes on to describe an incident when she met a seemingly unpretentious girl from a village at a summer camp that, for once, made her set the “I, Me, Myself” attitude aside.
At this point, I am tempted to ask her if she thinks that most teenagers growing up in big cities are like that.
True that!
Compared to most people her age, Gupta’s prose is more elegant and she credits it to her reading.
“From when I was a kid, I always used to read a lot. From Nancy Drew to Harry Potter to War and Peace, I have been across the entire spectrum of fiction.” And as she says that I begin to wonder if this book was a conscious effort.
What differentiates her work from other books populating teen fiction at bookstores is that Gupta did not write for a particular audience. “Some aspects of the book will definitely resonate more with younger people but the purpose of fiction isn’t to relate with the character. So it’s for anyone who likes my writing,” she says. And I am sure there would be many takers for her refreshingly new voice!
(Vani has worked as a business journalist and is the author of ‘The Recession Groom’. She can be reached @Vani_Author)
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