Seven-year-old Abhijita Gupta, who recently released her first book Happiness All Around, has been recognised by the India Book of Records as youngest author to write prose and poetry both, the Asia Book of Records as grandmaster in writing, and the International Book of Records as the youngest author.
The third generation of the poet duo Maithili Sharan Gupt and Siyaram Sharan Gupt, Gupta received the medals and certificates in the last week of October. She was a little over five, when she went to her parents asking for a copy and pencil to write a story.
Her mother Anupriya Gupta says, "To our surprise she wrote the whole story with only one or two spelling mistakes. We were shocked when we came to know about her capability." The first story she wrote was The Elephants Advice and her first poem was A Sunny Day – both are there in the book.
"Thoughts keep coming into my mind and I keep writing about the things I see, hear or touch. I like to express myself whether it’s through stories or poems, doesn’t matter at all. The only thing I like is to write about positive things because my parents always ask me to stay positive and not to give up," adds the child prodigy.
The book that has been brought out by Invincible Publisher, Gurugram, has 10 poems and four stories, and the illustrations have also been done by Gupta.
Gupta says that she loves creating art. “Since nursery I have been adjudged as one of the outstanding performers in drawing and colouring competitions in school. I feel relaxed when I do it,” adds Gupta , who studies in Class II at Presidium School, Indirapuram. It has stories and poems about parents, grandparents, mother earth, friendship, freedom fighters, seasons, giving good advice to friends, not being overconfident, and listening to your near and dear ones.
She wrote many of her poems and stories during the lockdown as she was not going to school, and was not allowed to meet friends. “So I kept myself busy with a pencil and a diary.”
About making time for studies and poetry, she says, "It’s easy, first I finish my school work and my studies and later I write. But there is no particular time to write.
There are some days when I don’t write at all and sometimes I write at midnight," who loves reading Ruskin Bond and Sudha Murthy. She has not read any of her great grandfathers' poems or prose because she can’t manage to read Hindi properly.
But she had learnt one of Gupt’s poems for her August 15 speech, titled Nar ho na nirash karo man ko. And with the same zeal, she is working on her next book these days. She says, "It will be tentatively titled We Will Surely Sustain, and is about my and all other children’s view on pandemic and its effect on kids."