Being Paro: Inside Paro Anand’s Writing Journey

I literally fell down the rabbit hole of writing. I was an excellent liar as a child, cooking up fantastically stories because I felt my life was too boring. Somewhere along the line, I thought that I would take this core competence of mine and turn it into a profession. And that’s how I came to be a storyteller and writer of fiction – in other words, a professional liar. I discovered that there wasn’t much in India at that time which truly connected with young people. It was all folk lore and mythology, so I started writing what I would have loved to have as a child. And I haven’t been able to stop since. My family keeps telling me I should slow down. But I honestly can’t. To me writing is like breathing. I suffocate without it.

But I do treat it like a profession. I show up to work every single day, even though I work from home.

My first book was a collection of plays for schools. On a cold, wet monsoon day, I went door to door in the publishing district of Delhi, soaked to the skin, my manuscript carefully wrapped in plastic. Rejection after rejection had me dejected. But persistence paid of when this one was finally published years later (as my 7^th book). By which time I had been bitten by the writing bug. Luckily for me, I think my lifetime quota of rejections may have been completed on that rainy day, because since then, I’ve never been rejected. Touch wood and all that.

And now, my 30^th book is set to be released in a few days. One of the most challenging. Being Gandhi. When Tina Narang of HarperCollins first asked me to write a book on Gandhi, my initial reaction was ‘NO’. I don’t like doing documentary, I love fiction. And how can you weave fiction around Gandhi? Then I thought I would do one for little kids. But there was something niggling away inside me. I had a feeling that I couldn’t quite grab a hold of. Then one day, unexpectedly, in my son’s office, the idea took some shape. I ran away to my daughter’s house in Mumbai and rode the story to be the novel it is today. I have to say, I love it. And that’s a scary thought to say out loud. Before anyone has even read it in the big wide world. But I think this is going to be a book that connects with young people and adults alike.

Writing this story has been sort of cathartic, I didn’t realise a pain that had been in my gut for many years. With Being Gandhi, I was able to look this pain in the eye and get on top of it. That’s a gift and blessing that writers do have, to be able to confront your fears within the safe space of fiction.

Yes, one of the biggest challenges of writing for young adults and children is that our readers are most often not our buyers. So, we have to convince adults first and then engage children. It becomes even more tricky when writing for teenagers and young adults. But this is the voice that comes naturally to me. Perhaps I never quite grew up.

When I first started, I did feel a huge chasm. That my books were not reaching my readers. So, I started Literature in Action, a program to connect directly with young people and talk about issues that they may already have been talking about, or things that they should be more aware of. Difficult themes like violence, divorce, death, sex, gender identity, domestic and sexual abuse. The more I write on these themes, the younger people connect with me, open up to me and talk about things that they are having problems with. We have free and frank discussions that are powerful.

These interactions inspire me to write more and my writings, in turn take me towards more children. Through Literature in Action, I have been working with children in very difficult circumstances. Like young people born into the unrest of Kashmir, tribal children, special need children. But I also make it a point to work with young people in very privilege because they are the ones who are going to go on to make a difference in the future.

I think stories are a great way to create an empathetic generation who pay more than lip service to the world’s problems. For me, I want my books to be a call to action, a weapon of positive change.

And certainly, Being Gandhi hopes to do just that.

 

Get your copy of Being Gandhi now: https://harpercollins.co.in/book/being-gandhi/