New Delhi:
In the times of ‘Insta fame’ and social media stardom, penning a fiction trilogy at the age of 14 may be a distant aspiration for many teenager, but Yajat Sharma plunged into the magical world of four friends to come up with a series which has become a hit on the online marketplace.
It started at the age of 12 in 2018 when Yajat authored first in the series “Quest For the Arcane Crown” a save-the-world genre fiction in which four children — James, Matt, Daniel and Arthur — race against the ‘lord of death’ to find pieces of arcane crown.
The children having powers of Water, Air, Earth and Fire try to save the earth by travelling to the dark world created by magician Lord Arcane which has been taken over by evil forces — Deat Lord and Skull Warrior — who want to capture earth.
Replete with emotions, magic, treachery, deceit and riddles, the fast-paced narration takes readers through high drama which ends with the triumph of friendship and sacrifice.
Son of Tripura-cadre IPS officer Anish Sharma, Yajat used his time during the COVID-19 lockdown to come up with the second edition of his maiden novel, followed by two successive parts of the trilogy.
At the age of 10, when siblings normally fight over TV remote and toys, Yajat and his sister used to compete in creative writing contests, and at home on who can come up with a better story.
“That was the spark,” Yajat’s father Anish Sharma, an Inspector General in the Tripura Police, told PTI. “Yajat would think of a plot and keep on typing for several days. When we (I and Ritu) saw his imagination, we were surprised. The storyline was amazing.”
“We encouraged Yajat to complete his story to which he said it will take several books. We suggested him to divide the story into parts or episodes. Yajat divided the story in three segments. Thus, a TRILOGY was conceived.”
On March 18, 2021, the three books touched top three spots in Amazon’s bestseller rankings in two categories, the former CBI officer said.
The books can be downloaded for free on kindle on Amazon from March 21st to March 24 as part of the family’s celebration of Yajat’s success.
Asked how did Yajat inculcate affinity for books, Sharma said, “We kept both the children away from TV, video games, social media etc since their infancy. They used to get bored and irritated, but we tried to push them into creative things to kill boredom.”
From Yajat’s infant days, his mother Ritu used to read him short stories till he reached the age of four years, he said.
“It was a daily routine which Ritu followed without fail. He used to listen to his mom’s stories and fall asleep,” he said.
Yajat’s parents soon realised he could read books very fast and also narrate their contents with impeccable accuracy.
They soon started taking the siblings to various libraries in Delhi where Yajat and Jagriti became avid readers.
After the draft of Yajat’s first book was complete, it was not easy to get it through publishers.
“We started searching for publishers but didn’t get an encouraging experience. It was struggle all through. Despite the fact that we never wanted any commercial gains out of our child’s work, we were not able to get the book published for a long time.
“There were several rejections and we took them in stride. There were moments of hope and dejection. Finally, Late Sh. Aashish Agarwal of the Rising Sun Publishers, New Delhi, accepted the script and published the book,” he said.
