CHENNAI: When late President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam formed a vision for 2020, he would have hardly imagined that a deadly virus would end up shaking the entire world, forcing everyone to stay inside and press pause on life. From March 2020, with each passing month, we learned new things about the virus, about ourselves and the people around us. Just as the year ended and we found a semblance of normalcy, the second wave hit. With it came chaos, confusion, frustration and helplessness.
This pretty much sums up everybody’s life in the past two years. Even for Nandita Baabu. While the architect grappled with uncertainty in the first wave, she decided to channel the negative energy into something positive during the second. Thus, the seed for The Little Book That Cares — Your sanctuary amidst chaos, was sown.
“We contacted several talented artists and writers, sent them invites and gave them topics like hope, faith, solitude and humanity to write and illustrate about. We got such different perspectives and so we thought of incorporating it as a collection,” says Nandita, who donned the hat of the project director for this effort that began in May 2021.
Walking with her every step of the way was her college junior, Abinaya V who took on the role of editor-in-chief. While they got in touch with their circle of friends, there were also others who reached out to them on hearing about this project.
Stories you can relate to
The book is a collection of 50 poems and stories and three comic strips that take us back to the days of the lockdown, the myriad of emotions we went through, the coping mechanisms we sought and our hunt for hope. Some works are a salute to frontline workers. “We learnt through the process. We wanted to make it like a Zine (where writers compile their works together and sell) but because of the response we decided to make it a proper book. We initially planned for 30 pieces with illustrations but then we ended up having 50 pieces and three comic strips,” she shares.
As the project grew, so did the team. Nandita brought together art editors, i llustrators and editors to follow up with the contributors, facilitate them with topics, pairing up the writers and illustrators and helping them build the entire narrative. What surprised Nandita was that there were few writers who expressed interest to work with an illustrator of their choice. This also turned out to be a breeding ground for new friendships, she says.
Ideas that cheer
The book is a potpourri of ideas with contributions from Abinaya and Nandita too. When some artists wanted to do comic strips, Nandita also decided to try her hand at that medium — one that is completely new to her. “It helped me understand storyboarding. I am someone who uses big words and this made me simplify my thoughts. It was a huge learning process for everyone involved,” she notes. Amita Sana has created stickers for each chapter highlighting the names of the writers and illustrators, along with their social media handles.
The book went through two rounds of edit — first by the team and second by a trustworthy band of well-wishers who were provided with fragmented parts of the text to share their views. They went for self publishing by December and the book was ready by February 2022.
The book, Nandita hopes, will be something that makes readers feel good about the world when they want to. “You can pick any poem or story randomly and read. We wanted to keep it concise. I want the readers to find comfort, turn their frowns upside down, and just want the book to be something that would make them feel warm and fuzzy inside,” she signs off.
Price: Rs 999. Available on Amazon, Flipkart and on www.whitefalconpublishing.com