For 11-year-old Varsha, the wait for the school seemed eternal. With butterflies in her stomach, her heartbeat grew louder as the school bus finally honked at a distance. As she boarded the bus, she knew that this school trip will last forever. All she had to do was to flip the pages of a storybook at a later age to relive her trip.
And it is 19-year-old Sanjana Tadepalli who was plucking Varsha's dreams and splashing them across canvas through her initiative, Storybook Me.
Working with underprivileged children, Sanjana realised that though they could read, their interest in reading books was very low. And what could be a better idea to encourage children to read than make them the 'hero' in the storybook.
"The idea is to create personalised, unique storybooks in which each child is the 'hero'. Each book will feature an interest or hobby of the child, ranging from sports idols to cartoons to dream travel destinations. Apart from featuring numerous aspects of a child’s life to make the book more relatable, the book’s theme will resonate with a challenge that the child is facing. For instance, we could write a story about the child teaming up with Sachin Tendulkar to scare the school bully," she says.
For the pilot project, Sanjana worked with Ashwini Charitable Trust and created heroes out of the lives of 13 children.
Her own storybook
Sanjana, who herself has starred in a book or two, knows the feeling of seeing ones name in print or the pride felt on saving the day as the protagonist. Years ago, a simple personalised storybook by her parents changed Sanjana's perspective towards reading. Earlier a burden, it became a fun-filled activity.
And why not, when she was living her dreams through it. Years later, when this teenager wanted to 'give back' to the society, she knew what was the best gift a child could get. "I have been very lucky. My parents gave me the gift of reading and I just wanted to pass it on," she says.
Creating the story
To prove that it was not merely a 'project' to get into good colleges, Sanjana got professional writers and illustrators on board from around the world so that each storybook would be as professional as it could get. The volunteers spent months together with children, understanding their thoughts, their desires and their issues.
And then the storybook was created around the child. For example, The Girl who Scared the Tiger is about Kritika's trip to the zoo. Other titles like Chaitanya Travels the World, Anju's Greatest Day and Monisha Saves the Day present the children's imagination and desires in fictional fables.
They also conduct a reading program alongside the book creation process. The aim of the reading program is to sensitise children to reading through a variety of interactive and innovative reading activities and sessions.
The smiles
The high point of the year-long journey (the time taken to develop the initiative) was when the children's faces brightened up as they saw the storybooks.
Some of the books had 'photoshopped' pictures of the children instead of caricatures.
"It was a great day. All the hard work paid off when I saw those smiles. It was then I realised that this is what we were working for," she says.
Holding on
Sanjana is currently in Singapore, studying at the Yale NUS (National University of Singapore). But that doesn't mean that Storybook Me is going to die down.
"I am going to hold on to it and try to change more lives if possible. This is just the beginning," she says.
saloni@newindianexpress.com