By Azera Rahman, IANS,
New Delhi : Debutante novelist Asmita Goyanka drew a parallel of global warming threatening to destroy the earth with the villain in her novel. At the moment, she is working on two other manuscripts and has her mind filled with ideas for more. For a 13-year-old, that’s quite a lot.
Set in a fictitious place, Ujaasnagar, Goyanka’s novel “The Mystic Temple” is about five schoolgoing girls who take up a dare to snoop around the relics of an ancient temple and are then faced with this huge responsibility of saving the earth from being destroyed by the evil Malvigo.
“I had done a lot of research for the names of my characters. Malvigo, I found, means evil in Spanish and I decided that this was the name for the evil character in my story,” Goyanka told IANS at her home in north Delhi.
Dressed in a t-shirt and a short skirt, Goyanka is like any other kid of her age whose daily schedule is choc-a-bloc with classes, homework and extracurricular activities. Yet, there’s a certain maturity in her mannerisms which sets her apart.
“I love reading books and am just not into movies. I love Enid Blyton, hate ‘The Famous Five’, am still exploring mystery and classics and would love to write a romantic novel some day,” she said, all in one breath.
Currently, she is reading Japanese-authored books.
“The Mystic Temple”, the Class 8 student admitted, happened quite by chance.
“I was in Class 6 and doing my Math homework, when I started scribbling a story. After jotting down whatever I thought at the back of my notebooks, I once casually told my grandfather, who’s also an author, that I was writing a book and he coolly said ‘Go ahead’ ” she said, as her grandfather, Kamal Kishore Goyanka, looked on.
“After that I compiled whatever I had written and seriously started writing. I completed the book last year, when I was 12 and gave the book for publishing. By the time it got published, I turned 13,” Goyanka said.
Published by Roli books, Goyanka’s 96-page novel is priced at Rs.195. The final draft of the story was ‘Indianised’ to suit the readers’ taste here since the original one was written more in an American style.
She is now working on the sequel to “The Mystic Temple” as well as on a suspense-philosophical story.
“I kept holding my book for hours after I got the first copy. But, frankly, now I think that the story is a little kiddish,” she smiled.
Goyanka’s parents are nevertheless proud of their daughter’s achievement and are now thinking of writing to the Limca Book of Records to have their daughter’s name entered as the youngest author.
“Asmita was 12 when she submitted her manuscript, and that makes her the youngest author. We will write to the Limca Book of Records regarding the same very soon,” Rupali Goyanka, her mother said.