Winning glory at the launch of 'Write India Stories'

The authors: (Left to right) Ravinder Singh, Preeti Shenoy, Durjoy Datta, Amish, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravi Subramanian, Tuhin A Sinha, Madhuri Banerjee, Jaishree Misra

One idea, 11 best-selling authors, 25,000 entries, 111 best stories and 36 winners—that’s what it takes to come up with the country’s first ever anthology of crowd-sourced short stories. On November 13, the book Write India Stories was unveiled at the St. Regis hotel in Mumbai, in the presence of the star authors and the proud winners. The Times of India’s Write India initiative, which kicked-off in July 2015, saw participation from passionate writers from all walks of life (from students to lawyers to doctors), all age groups (10 to 90 year olds) and all corners of the country (from Caranzalem to Mokokchung and Ichapore to Vasco da Gama!).

The authors, who set the ball rolling with their short passages as the theme of the stories, also mentored the participants who chose to write on their respective themes. In the list of authors were well known names such as Amish, Chetan Bhagat, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravi Subramanian, Preeti Shenoy, Tuhin A Sinha, Ravinder Singh, Durjoy Datta, Madhuri Banerjee, Jaishree Misra, and Anita Nair. The overwhelming response saw some participants writing for all the themes, and some of them were even selected by more than one author.

Amish, the much popular author of the best-selling series of Shiva Triology, said he was delighted at the kind of stories that came in. About the initiative, he said, "Anything that encourages freedom of expression should be encouraged. Writing a book is essentially giving voice to one's soul and this is the one of the best possible platforms for freedom of expression."

The evening was flagged off by the Director of Write India, Vinita Dawra Nangia, who started with introducing the authors cum mentors while also pointing out the starry eyed winners of the contest, who were eagerly awaiting their moment of glory. She then moved on to give the audience a brief description of how the idea found its way to become one of the most successful campaigns ever. She told the audience how the entire team, including the participants, literally burned the mid-night oil as the passages set by every author were released around midnight and so were the closing times. Up next came the much-awaited moment of the evening when Vinita introduced each of the winners as their respective mentors/authors handed them over a copy of their first published work along with a certificate. For all of them, it was a day never to be forgotten, as they shared their journey of self-belief and dedication that got them this ultimate moment of success.

When asked about her opinion on the quality of entries, author Preeti Shenoy told us, "I have been involved with the campaign right from the beginning and was surprised by the quality of the stories that came in. It was so hard to pick one, as each one was better than the other. I really enjoyed reading all of them. The sheer number of participants motivates you."

The authors with the winners

The evening got its share of humour as author and businessman Ashwin Sanghi told everyone that as a child, his mother would often tell him that he was a good liar. According to him, he knew it right then that he would be a good writer as he lied too well and writing is all about a well-spun story. When the other authors teased Ravi Subramanian about his choice of topic, Infidelity, the writer sited the reason as "midlife crisis". Worth mentioning on this topic would be 14-year-old Prapti Panda—one of the winners of Subramanian's theme, whose story Clouded Skies left the organisers wondering how could someone so young write on infidelity. The evening was rounded off with an enactment of winner Nainesh Jadwani’s story, Palwasha's Revenge, by theatre artist and actor Swati Das. Nainish's story, written for author Chetan Bhagat, was inspired by the Godhra riots.

With the first season of Write India being a huge success, all eyes are glued—watching out for the launch of the second season.