Letting her imagination run riot is the most natural pastime of teenage novelist Harshita Magdum (14). Her novel Almost... desperate (Stalwart Publications, Rs.300) was released at the Press Club, Bangalore by Kannada writer Sa.Si. Murliah on January 19. This is the young writer’s second book after Ruby Rush (Ruvari Publications) was pub-lished in 2010, with its first print run of 2,000 copies sold out.
The elder of two siblings, Harshita was introduced to the magical world of books when she was just five by her parents — Basavaraj Magdum, a CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) inspector, and homemaker mother Shivani. “By the time I was seven, I had finished reading the entire series of Enid Blyton apart from the works of Stephenie Meyer, J.K. Rowling and Cassandra Clair,” recalls Harshita.
Inspired to write like her favourite authors and by her love of the English language, Harshita started writing short stories when she was eight. Two years later in 2009, she began writing Ruby Rush, which took seven months to complete. “My father liked the story and undertook to be my agent. As usual, it was rejected by all major publishing companies. But the Bangalore-based Ruvari Publications finally agreed to publish it,” she says.
Clearly, this class VIII student of Bangalore’s Delhi Public School (North) is thrilled by the success of her first novel and hopes to replicate it with Almost… desperate. “My books written for teenagers, are full of action with a mix of suspense and adventure,” she says.
To hone her writer’s craft, Harshita avidly does three hours of extra-curricular reading every day, after completing her homework and putting in four hours per week of basketball practice. “Luckily I don’t watch television like other kids. Instead I write after dinner and often late into the night during school terms. However, most of my writing which could stretch to four-five hours per day happens during school vacations,” says Harshita.
Curiously, Almost... desperate — a 260-page novel about a young Columbian high school student’s encounter with a vampire — and Ruby Rush — a 100-page science fiction thriller about a mystery surrounding a stolen scientific discovery — are based in Bogota and London, cities Harshita has never visited. “I decided on them simply because of their exotic locales,” she says, and has started work on her third novel — a whodunit.
Despite her early success, Harshita is not set on a writing career. “It’s not a financially secure profession,” she says sagely, and intends to study medicine and psychology after completing class XII, while continuing to write for personal and public satisfaction.
Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)
Aditya Deshpande
Pune lad Aditya Deshpande (12) has proved his skills on the pianoforte by winning top honours at the Musiquest national piano festival 2011 held in Pune last November. Musiquest is an all-India piano talent discovery contest pres-ented in an informal and friendly workshop/masterclass format, offering participants the opportunity not only of public performance, but of receiving instruction and certificates from an international panel of judges.
Promoted by the Academy of Music, Pune (est. 1986), Musiquest 2011 drew 164 young pianists between ages five-25 who played a total of 650 compos-itions during the three-day event of classical and jazz music. The top prize of a Kawai KX 21 upright piano valued at Rs.235,000 and a 50 percent scholarship from the International Institute of Young Musicians, USA in the category of Advanced First Place was awarded to Aditya, a class VI student of Pune’s Symbiosis Primary School for his 15-minute rendition of Sir Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
Aditya started playing the piano at age five when his family was resident in the US. “We used to listen to western classical music and since we had a piano at home, we encouraged him to play. His talent really took us by surprise. He reads through books of sheet music like novels, playing compositions in his head before practicing them intensively,” says his mother Swati.
When the family headed by V.S. Deshpande, an engineer working with the oil field services giant Schlumberger Gmbh, and his wife Swati, a home-maker, returned to Pune in 2010, they were fortunate in discovering a suitable piano teacher for Aditya in Roxana Anklesaria-Doctor, the founder of the Academy of Music, Pune.
A music graduate of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and a concert pianist and vocalist in her own right with several national perfor-mances to her credit, Anklesaria-Doctor has proved an ideal mentor to young Aditya. “He is an excellent learner with natural talent. In fact, he has picked up pieces that other students usually do after 14-15 years of intensive coaching,” she says.
Not quite decided about a career as a concert pianist, currently the young maestro has limited ambitions. “I would love to play with Zubin Mehta’s philharmonic orchestra at Carnegie Hall, New York,” says Aditya wistfully. “But right now, my immediate task is to improve my handwriting!” he laughs.
Huned Contractor (Pune)