My Science School

Books and films regale us with stories of multi-millionaires leading a double life. They often don capes like Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark, or plunge into adventure like Lara Croft. But in the case of Victor Vescovo, the truth is stranger than fiction.

The Dallas-based multimillionaire, who flies his own jet and helicopter, believes in living life to its fullest. So, the 53-year-old former naval officer has climbed the highest mountains on each of the seven contients and skied to both poles, becoming the 38th person ever to conquer the so-called Explorer’s Grand Slam.

And last year, he did the unthinkable: he conquered the oceans. Vescovo became the first person to dive into the deepest point in every ocean – Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Southern Ocean.

Exploring the deep was a dream of Vescovo’s ever since he was a little boy reading about the great adventures of 20th century explorers.

Using a state-of-the-art submersible called Limiting Factor, he plunged into the depths of the Challenger Deep, the Puerto Rico Trench, the Java Trench, the South Sandwich Trench and the Molloy Deep – in a short span of one year.

Some of these trenches had never been reached by humans before. On others, Vescovo created new records. He also discovered four new marine species in the process. Here’s an account of his dives and what he found down there:

From the trenches

The Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean contains the deepest known points on Earth. And at its bottom lies the Challenger Deep.

A gap between tectonic plates, it is the deepest spot in the ocean. Its depth is pegged to be around 36,070 feet, that’s 10,994 metres. The world’s highest mountain, Everest is 8,848 metres. And while thousands have successfully scaled Everest, only three have been able to reach the Challenger Deep. More people have walked on the moon!

The first dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench took place in 1960 by US Navy lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard. Then in 2012, James Cameroon, the director of Titanic, descended to the bottom of Challenger Deep, briefly reaching 10,898 metres. His sub was irrevocably damaged.

When Vescovo made the deepest manned sea dive ever recorded, at 10,927 m, the pressure at that depth was incredible. It reached to 16,000 pounds per square inch – enough pressure to crush a bulky car within seconds.

Though he descended safely, what he saw was disturbing. No, it was not some mysterious mythological creature, but a plastic bag and candy wrappers! Vescovo’s dive proved just how much damage humans have inflicted on the oceans.

Close encounters with third kind

Located in the Ring of Fire, the Java Trench in the Indian Ocean is one of the most dangerous places on the planet. Shifting tectonic plates regularly generate rattling earthquakes and mega tsunamis. As the submersible ploughed silently through the trench, a jellyfish-like creature became visible. The gelatinous animal had a small, shimmering balloon dangling from its body.

The team was able to capture it on camera. It is thought to be a rare species of stalked Ascidean.

His final dive was on August 24, 2019, into the Molloy Deep, the lowest point in the icy Arctic ocean, situated west of Svalbard, Norway. It marked the first manned dive to reach to the bottom of the abyss.

What’s next?

After scaling the mountains and the oceans, it’s no surprise that Vescovo has now set his sights on going into space. He also plans to conduct further dives in previously unexplored trenches around the Pacific Rim.

 

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Today, if you find doing assignments on the computer easy, you have to thank Larry Tesler. Wondering why? For it was he who invented the cut-copy-paste command. Does it ring a bell? Be it students, teachers or working professionals, you could probably count the number of people in the world who wouldn’t have used the cut-copy-paste command. Actually, you might not find anyone at all because that’s how essential this command has become in today’s computing.

Who was Larry Tesler?

Born in Bronx, New York, in 1945, Larry Tesler was a computer scientist. Having graduated from the Stanford University, California, Tesler started working for the Silicon Valley in the early 1960s – a time when the computer was still inaccessible to a majority of people. He specialized in user interface design and worked for a number of firms during his lifetime, such as Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre (Parc), where he started his career, and Apple. Post Apple, he set up an education start-up and worked with Amazon and Yahoo for brief periods.

Tesler believed in making the computer accessible to people. He wanted to simplify its use to make it easier for people to operate it.

During his time at Parc, Tesler, along with his colleague Tim Mott, devised the cut-copy-paste command. The idea for the same was inspired by the old method of editing, where people would physically cut portions of printed text and glue them elsewhere. Tesler also came up with the find & replace command during his time at Parc.

The cut-copy-paste command was first incorporated into Apple’s software on the Lisa computer in 1983. After this, computers have only become more and more user friendly.

Tesler passed away on February 20, 2020. He was 74.

What do we thank him for?

Cut, copy and paste. These commands are an indispensable part of our lives today. Instead of typing out chunks of text, one could use these commands to complete the process in a fraction of time.

In Windows computers, to cut text, you can highlight the text using mouse and right click and select Cut. Alternatively, you could use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+X.

For copying text, you would follow the same process and choose Copy instead from the list or use the shortcut Ctrl+C.

For pasting text, select Paste from the menu, or use the shortcut Ctrl+V to paste the text in the place you want.

Remember, when you Cut and Paste text, the text will no longer remain in its original place. Whereas, if you Copy and Paste text, you are creating a copy of the text, meaning the original remains intact.

 

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Whether it is an action figure, a hot wheels car or a rosy-cheeked plastic doll, toys are favourite playmates of every child. But what happens when children grow up and the toys get shoved away into a forgotten corner? That’s exactly what the Toy Story franchise, which began 25 years ago, showed us. It explored the secret lives of toys through the adventures of Woody, the spindly toy sheriff; Buzz Lightyear, the space ranger; and Bo Peep, a porcelain shepherdess figurine, who try their best to ensure that their owner Andy doesn’t forget them.

But did you know that Toy Story was the first-ever entirely computer-animated (CGI) film, which ushered in a new era of animation and special effects? Or that it almost did not get made because Disney did not like the main character?

Toy Story was the first major project of Pixar Animation Studios, which was still a relatively unknown company. Started off as the computer division of Lucasfilm, which was founded by the legendary George Lucas, its first product was the Pixar Image Computer that could produce high resolution computer graphics. In 1986, Steve Jobs acquired this division and named it Pixar.

The world got a taste of the young studio’s creativity when they made a short animated film called Luxo Jr, using the Pixar Image Computer. The film won the Best Animated Short at the 1986 Academy Awards.

That’s when the children’s film giant, Disney approached Pixar to make three full-length animated films. Pixar took up the challenge and assembled a team of computer scientists and scriptwriters, which later became famous as ‘the brain trust’.

Breaking ground

At that time, technology for producing full-length animated films did not exist. So Edward Catmull, who was executive producer of Toy Story, created a whole new digital-animation programme RenderMan which eventually made the film possible. Catmull went on to win an Oscar for his contribution.

RenderMan allowed the animators, without much engineering background, to control the movement of their own characters. Though the programme was path-breaking, it had its limits. For instance, it made all animated objects look like plastic. As the team tried to find a way out, Jon Lasseter, co-founder and chief creative officer of Pixar, came up with a simple solution. Why not have the main characters that are made of plastic?

That’s how the team decided to make a film about toys. In 1988, Lasseter had directed an Oscar winning short film Tin Toy. Having toys as characters lent itself well to the software. Humans were by far the most difficult to create, so the story was told from the toy’s point of view. But the team was worried whether the concept might be too juvenile for older kids and adults. After a lot of research, they chose toys that everyone could relate to. That’s how Woody, Buzz, Mr. Potato Head and Bo Peep were born.

Story first

Another challenge in front of the team was whether to focus on the technology or the story? Sure technology and special effects were bound make the film visually appealing, but would it be enough? After studying classics such as Star Wars, Wizard of Oz and Snow White, the team was convinced that white technology was important, the story played a much bigger role. The story is what the viewers will take back with them so it was given priority.

Andrew Stanton got working on the screenplay. Though the film was commissioned by Disney, Pixar did not want it to be a fairytale or a musical. No prince or princesses were included. In fact, the writers did not even want the main character to be likeable.

Put on hold

But Disney, which enjoys a reputation for making fairytale films such as Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, did not approve. It refused to fund the project till the main character was rewritten. Production was put on hold and the film seemed to be doomed until Jobs decided to fund it. However, Disney came back on board soon after the team agreed to make some changes in the original storyline.

Along came Joss Wheadon, who took over the writing and made the film into what it is today. Woody’s character was made more likeable and the conversations more lively and engaging. Randy Newman’s You’ve Got a Friend in Me was used as the theme song.

Commercial success

When Toy Story finally released on November 22, 1995, it was a litmus test for Pixar. Did they make all the right decisions? Was it a good idea to focus on the story and not the technology? Well, the box office provided the answers. The film was considered a huge success because it made more than $300 million. About four years later, Toy Story 2 was released, which was also a big hit. Then in 2010, Toy Story 3 bagged an Oscar. The other Pixar titles to have won the animated trophy are Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouile, WALLE-E, Up, Brave Inside Out and Coco. Today, Pixar has become a major force in the industry. More than 225 CGI feature films have released since 1995. Over the years, the animation got bigger and better. But remember, it all began with a toy!

 

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Archit Taneja was born in Bangalore, every different from the Bengaluru that we know of now. After living in different places throughout his childhood, he finally ended up again in Bengaluru for work. “One thing that hadn’t changed about the city, until very recently, was the big store for children’s clothes and toys. Men dressed in bizarre mascot costumes at the store traumatized me as a kid, and then as an adult. I think it finally shut down a few years ago. The memories still remain, but the closure helped,” says Archit, adding he is soon going to pen down his next – a young adult horror book based on this traumatic memory.

That’s Archit Taneja for you – building on experiences around him, bringing on humour by the tonnes, a scientific approach to case-solving and speaking in a tongue that has everyone from middle readers to young adults (YA) hooked. Wait. And gaming. Read him and you’ll know how important it is to his writing. He has the “Superlative Super Sleuths” series under his belt, featuring the super awesome duo Rachita and Aarti who solve cases involving candy bandits and careless aliens. The series is going to have author book by the year-end.

Archit says he started writing when he was 14 or 15, mainly to vent out the teenage angst that most kids have at that age. “It was mostly emo stuff and really terrible humor that I never dared to share with even those closet to me. Reading, strangely, didn’t inspire me to write. I recollect me and my likeminded friends pillaging through the horrible jokes section of books in the library, while our peers were busy either reading more serious stuff or doing other things that the popular kids did,” he says.

But once he was in his 20s and slightly more confident about himself, he shared a couple short stories with a few close friends, one of whom suggested he do a writing workshop with the publishing house Duckbill. He attended it on a whim, and ended up really enjoying it. The rest, as they say, is history. Or rather mystery, since Duckbill went on to publish the “Superlative Super Sleuths” series.

Writing like Archit Taneja

Archit has some great tips for young writers and he dishes them out in his trademark style:

• Do not be discouraged if you feel your writing style doesn’t stand out or if you don’t have a fancy vocabulary. That is just one aspect to writing, and you can still tell a good story if you excel in other areas.


• When it comes to writing, you should embrace you weird. What makes you unique is probably what will reflect the best when written down.


• Children’s/YA books by Indian authors are still far from the limelight. Books by foreign authors still dominate Indian readers. We are still waiting for an Indian author who changes the landscape in this genre. You could be that author!


• Writing something can require a lot of labour. There would generally be a driving force that makes you want to continue working on the project. It could be something that inspires you, something that you really enjoy and want to put into words. It’s possible that the driving force dies mid-way and you don’t feel like finishing the thing. For example, if you’re a massive fan of a television show, and the new director ruins the show by messing up the plot or changing the character’s personalities in the next season, you obviously don’t relate to the show anymore, and just hearing its name makes you cringe. At such a critical juncture, you should remind yourself that your fan fiction is its own entity now, and it is independent of external events, so you should not stop. Also, you’ve spent so much time on it already, it would be just stupid to stop now. This example can be extrapolated to other scenarios.

The writer’s routine

Archit says he is not sure if he has a consistent writing style. “If I’m feeling profound, which happens if I have just read or watched something profound, or stayed up beyond 2 a.m., I try to write more descriptively. Otherwise, I just end up telling the story in simple words. In whatever style I write, I attempt to achieve goofy or quirky humour, with possibly a scientific/technological bent to it,” he reveals.

Archit mostly ends up writing on weekends. “If I think of something interesting on a weekday, I end up taking notes on my phone to expand on them during the weekend. The writing happens in one- or two-hour bursts, interleaved with unhealthy food snacking and random video-watching on the phone. A lot of web browser tabs are opened to search on topics,” he says.

Bet you didn’t know that Archit is obsessed with the cartoon “Adventure Time”. At one point, he was the No. 1-ranked player in India in the “Adventure Time” section of a popular quiz app.

 

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Neither age, nor adversity could stand in the way of Xia Boyu, who climbed the highest mountain in the world at the age of 69, becoming the second double-amputee ever to do so. Overcoming tragedy and official barriers, Boyu proved that resilience and determination can move mountains.

Testing times

Boyu lost his legs on his forst attempt to climb Everest. An avid mountaineer, Boyu was part of the Chinese Mountaineering team to Everest in 1975. At 8,000 metres, not far from the summit, the team was caught in an altitude storm. They were stranded for three nights in the merciles storm in the ‘death zone’ of Everest, where there is so little oxygen that the body starts to die, minute by minute, cell by cell.

Under such extreme circumstances, one of his team mates took ill and Boyu generously lent him his sleeping bag. Exposed to the harsh cold, Boyu’s feet experienced frostbite and had to be amputated.

Before Boyu could even come to terms with his mutilated body, a couple of decades later in 1996, disaster struck again. He was diagnosed with lymphoma. This time, the doctors had to amputate his legs above the knee to prevent the cancer from spreading to other parts of his body.

Grit and determination

In such adverse conditions, it was impossible to think that Boyu would ever be able to climb mountains again. But he was not one to give up. Reaching the summit of Everest was his dream and he was determined to fulfill it.

Wearing advanced sports prosthetics, he trained longer and harder and attempted to climb the mountain again. His gruelling exercise routine involved waking up at 5 a. m. Everyday and doing 1,500 squats holding 10 kg weights, followed by 360 push-ups and 240 sit-ups.

After getting into shape, Boyu returned to Everest in 2014, but this expedition failed too. His second attempt in 2015 was also cancelled following a 7.8 earthquake that shook Nepal and triggered more avalanches on the mountain. On his third attempt in 2016, he had reached within 94 m of the summit, but a blizzard stopped him from going any further.

Race against time

Then, in 2017, Boyu realised that he did not have much time to complete his challenge. The Nepalese government had announced a ban on double amputees along with visually impaired and solo climbers from reaching the summit in an effort to prevent overcrowding and improve safety of climbers.

Had the ban come into place, it would have dashed Boyu’s hopes forever. But as luck may have it, the new rules raised a global outcry.

Hari Budha Magar, a former Royal Gurkha Rifles soldier and a double amputee, launched legal action, citing violation of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of persons with Disabilities.

In response, the Supreme Court put the ban under temporary review on the grounds of being discriminatory.

With a renewed sense of purpose, Boyu decided to give it one last try in this window of time.

Dream comes true

In May 2018, Boyu, with the help of 12 Sherpa guides, reached the summit. While he became the first doube amputee to reach the peak from the Nepal side, New Zealander Mark Inlis, who has also lost both legs to frostbite, conquered Everest in 2006 from China.

For his endurance and sporting spirit, Boyu was awarded the Laureus Sporting Moment 2019.

 

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Three Men in a Boat, published in 1889, is a humorous account by English writer Jerome K. Jerome of a two-week boating holiday on the Thames from Kingston upon Thames to Oxford and back to Kingston. The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers – the jokes have been praised as fresh and witty.

The three men are based on Jerome himself (the narrator Jerome K. Jerome) and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who would become a senior manager at Barclays Bank) and Carl Hentschel (the founder of a London printing business, called Harris in the book), with whom Jerome often took boating trips. The dog, Montmorency, is entirely fictional but, "as Jerome admits, developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen, contains an element of the dog". The trip is a typical boating holiday of the time in a Thames camping skiff. This was just after commercial boat traffic on the Upper Thames had died out, replaced by the 1880s craze for boating as a leisure activity.

 

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Almost every article on Joyce Carol Oates begins with the astounding number of books the veteran writer has written. So far there are about 100 titles, including novels, plays, short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. What’s the secret of her success? Her work is ethic. At 81, Oates zealously writes for at least seven hours daily and regularly tweets on social media on issues close to her heart. It’s the love of writing that drives her.

A child prodigy

Born on June 16, 1963, Oates was the first in her family to graduate from high school. Growing up on a small farm outside the town of Millersport in New York, she attended a one-room school, where all the students studied in a single classroom irrespective of their age. Even in such a dismal setting, Oates shone. Recognising her talent, she was transferred to bigger suburban schools. In 1956, she graduated from Williamsville South High School, making her family proud.

Grandmother’s gifts

Oates’ grandmother played a special role in her life. She encouraged her to read from a young age. Oates’ foray into reading was Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which was a gift from her grandmother and she considers it one of her childhood treasures. Her love for books blossomed over time and she fervently devoured books by Emily Bronte, William Faulkner and even the complicated tomes of Dostoevsky.

Reading inspired her to try her hand at writing. When she turned 14, her grandmother yet again steered her in the right direction by giving her a typewriter. And there was no looking back after that. She churned out one story after the other and soon, won the Scholastic Art and Writing award.

She later published The Gravedigger’s Daughter based on her grandmother’s life.

Milestones ahead

Oates won a scholarship to attend Syracuse University, where she honed her writing skills further. She was introduced to more complex writers such as Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka and D. H. Lawrence. Her writing improved and she bagged a college short story award at 19.

After becoming a Phi Beta Kappa, the top honours at Syracuse University, she went on to pursue her post-graduation in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a doctorate from the Rice University. She decided to become a full-time writer.

Fresh out of college, Vanguard Press published Oates’ first book, the short-story collection By the North Gate, in 1963, and later, her first novel, With Shuddering Fall, when she was 26.

An all-rounder

A multi-talented Oates is lauded for her ability to write across different formats and genres on any topic, from powerful human emotions and inner lives of celebrities to the realities of the working class to semi-biographical works and even a fictional, but unerringly accurate, account of the lives of boxers.

Oates also loves writing for young adults and children because it gives her a chance to write happy endings and positive resolutions. Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You, After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread my Wings, and Flew Away, Freaky Green Eyes and Big Mouth & Ugly Girl are some of her popular young adult books dealing with topics such as teenage friendships, loss and addiction, and school violence.

Her writing style is quite unique, a blend of colloquial language and contemporary cultural and political references. In 1998, Oates received the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature.

The mystery lady

Oates ventured into mystery writing under the veil of anonymity. She wrote several books, mostly suspense novels, under the pen names Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly. However, her cover was blown in the late 1980s when her publisher and agents found out that Rosamond Smith, who wrote Lives of the Twins, a short psychological thriller, was not a first-time author as she claimed.

Disappointed at being found Oates swore not to write under pseudonyms again. But she soon broke her promise, publishing a total of eight books under the Rosamond Smith moniker as well as another three novels as Lauren Kelly. Eventually, it was revelaed that Rosamond Smith wasn’t her first pseudonym. She had also published several stories under the name Rae Jolene Smith.

From writer to publisher

Distressed by the Detroit race riots and the U.S. waging war on Vietnam, Oates took the bold step of moving to Canada. With considerable writing experience under her belt, Oates along with her husband forayed into publishing. In 1974, she founded a literary magazine (as the assisstent editor) called Ontario Review in Canada. The idea was to provide a platform to showcase literature from the U.S. and Canada. Later, the duo set up a publishing house, Ontario Review Books.

A gifted teacher

Oates was also an exceptional teacher. She has taught creative writing at the University of Detroit and at Princeton. She is currently visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches short fiction. Countless young writers in the U.S. credit Oates with shaping their writing. Jonathan Safron Foer, the bestselling author of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, who took an introductory writing course with Oates in 1995 is one of them. Oates helped him find his voice as a writer.

Goldmine of stories

It’s no wonder that Oates has been frequently nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; and is one of the crowd favourites for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her storytelling has won many awards including the National Book Award and the prestigious O. Henry Award twice. She is also the recipient of the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize. So if you haven’t read any of her books yet, just grab a copy and start reading.

 

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“Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.” – Greg Child, mountaineer.

Shrouded in mists and mysteries, the 6,960-meter-high majestic summit of Mount Aconcagua beckons one and all. Only a few dare to answer its siren call. Fewer still are capable of scaling its seemingly infinite peaks. But Kaamya Karthikeyan is no stranger to its heights. On February 1, 2019, she became the youngest in the world to scale the highest peak Argentina, South America.

At 12, the young daredevil has reached the top of Europe – Mount Elbrus (5,642 metres) – and even walked on the roof of Africa – Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895 metres). Here’s an account of how she got started in mountaineering and some of the hair-raising moments from her latest expedition.

The making of a champion

Mountaineering comes naturally to Kaamya. Sitting snugly in her baby sling, she accompanied her parents, Indian Navy Commander S. Karthikeyan and Lavanaya, who is an early childhood teacher, on numerous treks even before she started to walk. By the time she turned three, she was used to basic treks to the Sahyadris in Lonavala; and at seven, she mastered high-altitude Himalayan treks to Chandrashila and Roopkund. Later, she reached the Everest Base Camp in Nepal (5,346 metres) and in 2017, became the youngest mountaineer to conquer Mt. Stok Kangri (6,153 metres) in Ladakh.

Not old enough to enrol in training schools, Kaamya trains with her father, from whom she caught the mountaineering bug. “My father led expeditions for the Navy and used to go away for really long periods. So I wanted to know what there was in the mountains that kept calling him again and again,”Kaamya, who is studying in Class 7 at Navy Children School in Mumbai, tells The Hindu In School.

To build her endurance and stamina, she climbs up the stairs of her 15-storey high-rise building saddled with an eight kilogramme backpack. She does this not once or twice, but at least 16 times. Alternatively, the workouts are mixed with either a 10-km run or 20-km cycling. Weekends are relatively easier, with the family going out for treks.

But the grit and confidence are her own doing. “I admire all mountaineers. Going to the mountains is hard and after you have done it once and then to do it again and again takes a lot of courage. My role model has always been my dad,”she says.

On top of the world

Kaamya’s momentous expedition to Mount Aconcagua got off to a rocky start. She required a special permission from a judge in Mendonza to climb the mountain because of her young age. Despite carrying medical certificates from India, Kaamya was asked to take some more medical examinations and psychological assessments in Argentina. The delay set her back by about 10 days; finally she embarked on her adventure on January 17, 2019.

The sheer height along with extremely cold temperatures makes Aconcagua a challenging ascent even for the most accomplished mountaineers. For Kaamya, who has climbed the mountains of Ladakh, it was familiar territory, but the harsh winds threw her off.

Dressed in a padded jacket, she pushed past the howling winds. She climbed about 400 to 500 metres daily. “No other mountain in the ranges around Aconcagua is taller than 500 metres, so that makes it very windy. There is a traverse of two hours on the way to the summit when we are thrashed by winds,” she adds. “This made the expedition more difficult and challenging from my previous experiences.”

To make matters worse, when she reached close to the summit she was forced to turn back because of the inclement weather. “It was a windy day and my fingers were cold. The guides thought I was showing symptoms of acute mountain sickness. So they decided to turn me around and come back down. That was emotionally challenging and that drained me out a lot,” she recounts.

Not one to give up, she repeated the long and arduous, 19-hour-long steep climb again. “The company we climbed with was very helpful. They gave us a personal guide to climb the mountain second time,” she adds.

As she made her way to the top, everything else became a blur. She reached the highest point on the mountain and unfurled the Indian Tricolour. It took her about 18 days to complete the expedition.

“When you reach the top, you don’t feel like you have conquered something great. Instead, when you look at how big and majestic the mountains are it only makes you more humble. That’s what I have learnt from mountaineering,” says the gritty traveller.

Mountaineering has also helped her overcome her deep-rooted fear of the dark. “After all my expeditions, I have learnt that if there is dark then light will follow. And it has helped me overcome my fear. Apart from that there is no other fear,” she adds.

Kaamya aspires to become a forest officer. For now, she has set forest officer. For now, she has set her eyes on completing the Explorer’s Grand Slam, which involves climbing the highest mountains in all the seven continents – she has only three more to go – and skiing to the north and south pole. Stay tuned for her next adventure.

 

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It was 1996 when this then aspiring author sent a story to the Annual All India Tinkle Short Story Competition for adult writers of children’s fiction. That won her the first prize, but for the next seven years she won the first prize for her stories. And though the protagonist of the first story was named Butterfingers, Khyrunnisa didn’t let any opportunity slip through her fingers! With her 13-years-old protagonist Amar Kishan aka Butterfingers, she has created a smashing seven-book series, including one on the way.

The Thiruvananthapuram based author who was born and brought up in that city, says she started writing quite by chance. “I’m a chronic reader and a huge lover of books and English literature, but it had never been my ambition to become a writer, although, when it happened, I was delighted and am totally enjoying it now,” she says.

The making of a writer

Khyrunnisa confesses that the story of how she began writing is a rather long one. The author and her husband used to subscribe to the Mumbai-based magazine “Tinkle” for their son. The magazine had announced a competition for adult writers of children’s fiction and on a whim, she decided to send an entry. The story she wrote was “Butterfingers. “It won the second prize and I was very pleased. My story as a writer would have ended there had it not been for a visit to my house by two strangers – a lady and her husband. The lady was Prabha Nair, the then assistant editor of ‘Tinkle’. She had come to Trivandrum from Mumbai on a personal trip and when the staff at ‘Tinkle’ got to know about this, they had given her my address and asked her to look me up to find out if I was as bubbly as my story. I don’t know what she found out, but I was pretty thrilled to have an editor visit me on the basis of one story,” she laughs.

When Prabha Nair asked her if she was sending an entry for the following year’s competition and Khyrunnisa replied in the negative claiming she had already won a prize, the former suggested she send an entry since she wrote very well. Happy with this encouragement, Khyrunnisa did send in an entry that went on to win the first prize. That winning streak continued for seven consecutive years. “The writing bug bit me and very soon I was writing for other publications, had a column in ‘The New Indian Express’, won the 2007 Unisun Children’s Fiction Award, and got several other prizes. And when I was asked by ‘Tinkle’ to create a regular character for the magazine, I brought back Butterfingers. It was just a matter of time before the ‘Butterfingers’ series of books was published by Penguin Random House,” says the prolific writer.

Khyrunnisa loves humour writing, and is sure it must be the influence of her favourite writer, P.G. Wodehouse.

Writing like Khyrunnisa A.

Reading is quintessential to writing, says Khyrunnisa, listing out her tips for budding writers.

1. Be a reader first. Writing happens on the solid foundation of reading. Read extensively, both fiction and non-fiction, for that familiarises you with different kinds of books, plots, characters, ideas and writing styles. Meanwhile, keep writing, but don’t aim to be a published author the moment you start writing. The more you read, the better your writing style gets, for you keep revising what you have written.

2. Have a notebook where you jot down ideas that you get at odd places, or exciting incidents you read or hear about and wonderful sentences that come to your mind suddenly and then disappear.

3. Writing is hard work; be persistent. Don’t allow rejection to lead to dejection. Find the genre you are comfortable writing and eventually you will attain your goal of becoming a published author.

Khyrunnisa’s books

• Lost in Ooty and other Adventure Stories


• Howzzat Butterfingers!


• Goal, Butterfingers!


• Clean Bowled, Butterfingers!


• The Misadventures of Butterfingers


• Run, It’s Butterfingers Again!


• Of course It’s Butterfingers!


• The Lizard of Oz and Other Stories


• “Smash It, Butterfingers!”, the seventh book in the “Butterfingers” series, is due later this year and is going to be a badminton-based novel

The writer’s routine

“I am not a disciplined writer who puts in a certain numbers of words every day nor am I too organised in my writing,” she confesses, adding that almost all her writing has been deadline writing – whether it is the Butterfingers stories for “Tinkle” or the stories for other magazines or the regular columns in “The New Indian Express” or articles for other publications. “My ‘Butterfingers’ books have all been written against contracts. So I am always conscious of the deadline and plan my writing accordingly. I am most inspired and write at a frenetic pace when the deadline approaches; that’s also when I write best,” she says.

 

Picture Credit : Google