HYDERABAD: How old does a writer have to be to be able to write for young adults? In Kovida Yalamanchi’s case, a teenager! A 12th grade student, Kovida has recently launched her debut book The Window Seat and Other Stories which includes 11 stories with different themes. “Ever since I was young, people told me that I should write because I have a very interesting sense of humour,” she smiles. With a passion for writing, Kovida wrote a few stories a few years back and her mother sent it to one of her friends without telling her who wrote it. The appreciation for the writing was immense and her mother encouraged her to write.
The stories are inspired by the experiences she has been through. “I have made them fictional; I converted my observations to stories with a moral; something you can take away from each one of them,” she points out.
The book has everything for teenagers and also the problems they face. “One of the problems I think is we are always running late and there is a story about that. There is also one on being greedy and a teenage girl and the problems that she is going through.” The feedback has been positive. “Our close friends have said that when they read the story, they felt that the way I speak in the stories is usually how my mom usually speaks. They say I have picked up a lot of things from her.”
Kovida calls herself a regular teenager who likes to watch movies and Youtube videos. “I recently got a phone and was never into social media . I don’t have a Facebook account; In that sense that it helps because I didn’t have any distractions,” she smiles. She holds mentor programmes for teenage girls of Aashrita and the proceeds of book will go to the NGO in Secunderabad. “The programmes are about giving confidence to the Aashrita girls,” she states.
A trained pianist, she had also started the organisation Reading with the Tunes. “It is about reading and music. These are two disciplines that I have grown up with,” she says.
Before concluding Kovida wonders if her book has reached its target audience. “The challenge was to know, ‘Will people like it or not.’ This is my first book and I want to know if everybody enjoys it. Also when someone tells me, ‘I have a favourite story’ I am like, ‘Oh you didn’t like the rest.’ The challenge is to make it fit to a particular audience. I wrote the book for teenagers but then a lot of adults are reading it. I want to know whether youngsters of my age like it or not. The struggle is knowing that.”
