Anita Vachharajani was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) and has lived here all her life. She considers herself a Bombay girl to the core. “I think I first started in Class III, trying to put together a story with illustrations. My writing was poor, which didn’t matter to me. But the fact that I had not been able to draw well upset me!” reminisces the writer. You see, she was surrounded by the most gorgeous Russian picture books her mother used to buy her from roadside stalls on her way to work. “My standards for visuals were clearly high. I think I wrote my first poems in Class VI, and luckily, I have very faint recollections of my work from those days,” she laughs.
In fact, she confesses she fought being a writer – due to a lack of confidence – for the longest time. At 29, when she was at home for health reasons, she began thinking of children’s books, and had her first book published at the age of 31.
Anita’s inspiration
Anita says she is inspired by a great deal of sources. “If I had to name two, it would be Russian picture books (published in the former Soviet Union, and translated into English and other languages) and ‘Target’, a wonderful children’s magazine that was edited by Rosalind Wilson, a British educationist in India. The magazine’s delightful illustrations and its humanistic values have stayed with me.” Naming some of the remarkable contributors to “Target”, she says, “One of my favourite writers was Sigrun Srivatsava, and Atanu Roy, Jayanto and Ajit Ninan were the most memorable illustrations for me.”
The writer’s routine
Anita loves researching and nose-diving into projects. She likes to do a lot thinking and research before the actual writing process begins. “That is fun but it tends to become an obsession. So, often, I have to pull myself out of the rabbit-holes of research,” she adds.
A writer’s life is not easy. Anita confesses that it takes her a long time to warm up to work, and she’s easily distracted as well. See, it’s not only students who get distracted! “It doesn’t help, though, because my process is slow to begin with – ideas have to rattle around in my head for really long, and then suddenly, something good, something small yet solid will pop up one day,” says Anita.
But Anita is happy to celebrate her ‘slowness’. “It’s hard to explain this to family and friends, and I’ve decided that after years of being ashamed of my slow pace, I am now going to celebrate it. Any creative work needs the luxury of time and space to grow. We need to be kind to ourselves and give ourselves time for creative growth.”
Writing like Anita Vachharajani
Write, simply write, is what Anita has to say to all you budding writers out there. “Writing is a muscle, like art, Maths or spelling. The more you use the muscle, the more it – and you – will grow. If you can, write in a journey every day,” she adds.
“Young writers often feel impatient writing for no audience, like if the story or paragraph you’re writing now is not meant to be submitted (to a school magazine or a creative writing class), then if there is any point in doing it.” But she insists that the idea behind writing regularly is to write for the sake of writing. To simply put pen to paper. “When you practise Maths or spellings, for example, there’s no point asking, “But who will see this?’ You practise because doing sums or spellings often will make you better at them. Writing regularly is the same, but it’s definitely challenging to find the discipline to do so,” she explains.
If you do write a journal, but are worried about siblings, parents or friends taking a peek, you can always blog, she suggests, adding, however, that writing long-hand – with pen and paper – is a great tool and has huge cognitive and mental-health benefits.
Anita says, “I believe that only aimless creativity can lead to productive creativity. You need to write to lots of fun stuff, lots of rubbish, all for yourself, till you reach a point where you feel that finally you’re saying what you want to say how you want to say it. That’s why writers have drafts and more drafts!”
But apart from building the writing muscle, writers need to have skills such as observation, empathy and a decent vocabulary. “So it makes sense to ride buses, to observe all sorts of people and wonder about them, to read lots of books and to be kind – to oneself and to the world!” she says.
Bet you did not know that Anita loves cities and forests. She loves walking around and exploring places, she loves trivia, she loves black coffee, and she feels that if she ever went back to school, she’d hope to pay more attention to her science education, instead of just chomping through literature and history.
Anita’s Vachharajani’s books
- Amrita Sher-Gil Rebel with a Paintbrush
- Amazing India – A State-by-State Guide
- Tara Tambe, Forest Friend!
- The Puffin Book of Spooky Ghost Stories
Picture Credit : Google