This 14-year-old boy has proven that age is just a number after he wrote a gripping and fast-paced book on World War II. Touted to be on the youngest published India writers, Mehul Jangir has given his readers a dramaticised and exciting version of the on-ground situations pertaining to the War through his book 'Survival Sandstorm'.
The book is based on the story of a Russian pilot named Ivsker Vodkech. It takes the readers to all the odds he daced to uncover an organisation in Africa, in the backdrop of World War II. The genre of the book is stated to be historical fiction, certainly one not expected of an adolescent boy.
Interestingly, Mehul's imagination has belied his tender age of 14. Inspired y J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin, and Geronimo Stilton, he has tried to inhabit their writing styles and vocabulary.
Mehul is a Class 9 student of Jaishree Periwal International School in Jaipur. He had been writing short stories since Class 6 before he decided to give this book a shape in the physical world in Class 7. After giving much thought to the plot, he settled down on a war saga. Over the time, he added and removed characters, while many details changed over the time.
After a while, he claimed that the storyline came out to dictate itself, in a natural process from chapter to chapter and event to event. When asked what all problems did he faced during the process, Mehul told ANI, "During the process of writing, a constant problem was lack of continuity, sometimes, when I faced problems in developing the story or writing about an event, I would sometimes stop writing for a week or two. In the end, my parents encouraged me to continue and write further and further and resolve any conflicts or problems with the book".
He justified his choice of World War saga as, "It forms the crux of modern world history and still has an impact on events today. I've always loved the topic and ever since I started my book, my obsession with the world wars has grown a lot".
He talked about his inspiration to become a writer as such a young age. He said, "In Sixth grade, I went to Europe in my summer vacations with my parents. There, I found that people still remembered the world wars and the destruction that caused".
He further noted, "The emotion was at its height when I saw a couple weeping over the remains of the Berlin Wall, in memory of the devastation caused at that time. After that first hand experience, I did additional research and made a solid foundation for my book".
(With ANI Inputs)
