About The Author: Bhargavi Swami, the author, wears many hats. She is the entrepreneur of an ‘all-woman’ HR organization and takes pride in calling herself a content creator, catering to those who believe in the power of stories. She is known for her dynamic approach to content. Her works include India’s leading business podcast show, People Who Matter, among many other podcasts curated by her for brands. She is also the creator of a children’s animated space fantasy show, Nick Ka Antariksh. Bhargavi is also the author of a non-fiction book, P for Podcast, which is India’s first on the topic of podcasts. She believes that imagination is food for the soul, and we need more minds ignited with ideas to colour the world.
Summary Of The Book: The stories in this book are figments of my imagination. As an avid reader myself, I enjoy immersing myself in a world where the possibilities are endless. With magical cloaks, friendly wizards, eerie coincidences, and unpleasant surprises, this book is sure to transport you to a happy place. I invite you, dear reader, to come take a peek into my little make-believe world.
1. Can you tell us a little about your book?
The World of Vishwakarma is India’s first-time travel and history adventure series, which is a perfect blend of time travel, history’s mystery, and a whole lot of fun adventures. The book also displays the goals of childhood friendship and the relationship between children and parents. This is the first book title, ‘A Hack Into the Past,” in this series, where the title character will head into time travel adventures to very significant eras of Indian history and will end up connecting the present with the past. The title character, Vish, or Vishwakarma, is someone everyone can relate to. He is a boy genius who is amazing at science but hates history; he can never be the top scorer in class due to his bad grades in history. He stumbles upon a means to time travel, lands up in a significant period of history that is also on his syllabus, and realizes that he has the power to alter history. He decides to prevent events in the past from occurring so he does not have to study them. Whether you are a kid or an adult, you can easily relate to the character of Vish. We have all faced moral dilemmas, hatred for certain subjects, and the yearning for invention at different stages of our lives. Vish is unique yet relatable. Inquisitive yet notorious
2. Is there a specific event that inspired this story or was this an out-of-the-blue idea?
I have been a lover and student of history since the first history class I took. I had some amazing teachers and was exposed to some amazing documentaries and television shows about archaeologists and their discoveries from a young age. I enjoy reading and watching content in the space of history, mysteries, and science, and I was looking for the right.
3. What got you writing in the first place?
I am a born storyteller and an avid reader and listener of tales and stories. I was always very vocal about the world in my imagination and have entertained and irked many of my family and friends with this. I started writing the first time I was introduced to poetry in school, and I would then come home and make my own versions of silly rhyming words in a sentence. I got better with practise and chose nature as my subject for many of my initial poems. Writing an apology letter to my older sister was another area of practise, as this usually meant I had committed a huge blunder and the only way to get her to talk to me again was a warm and heartfelt apology letter. Falling in love really helped, as I am one of those who have written love letters to my then boyfriend’s current husband. My writing moved from a personal to a more creative space during my college days, and I was a media and psychology student for over five years. I have written for radio, short films, corporate films, marketing campaigns, and personal professional branding as an intern. Being an entrepreneur and a corporate professional makes you understand professional writing with minimal grammatical errors even better, as you never want to cut a sorry figure in front of a client. In short, every single experience in my life so far has helped me become an author and a writer.
4. What was your impression of your first draft when you read it?
Frankly, I have written so many first draughts for other books or scripts for web series that by the time I got to work on The World of Vishwakarma, Book 1: A Hack into the Past, I knew I had to have a systematic process in place. I had etched out the chapter titles and a rough idea of what would come under each chapter in advance, and they were great guides to writing the first draught. My mother, who is an academic and scholar, was my first editor, and her feedback helped refine the draught and give it the shape that it is today. It felt like an amazing bonding moment with my mother after years of working on writing projects together.
5. Which part of your story connects the most with you? Why?
There are many aspects of the story that do connect with me personally, especially the friendships in the book or the world of the legendary historical era. I am always someone who dreams of living in certain time periods in ancient history, and through this book, I am living that dream a little. The book talks about time travel, adventure, and fantasy, all of which are interesting concepts for me, and I have tried to create a fantastical adventure for the readers to enjoy. To all the readers, I would like to say, “Come enter the world of Vishwakarma and find a piece of you in it too!”
6. What makes your book the one to read?
This book is the perfect blend of science, history, and fantasy with dollops of humor. It revolves around that time period in our lives when we learn to stand up for our friends, understand that our parents are only looking out for our best, and start becoming aware of who we are and what our true potential can be. Most of all, the theme of going back in time and trying to prevent moments in history from taking place, so the title character Vish, or Vishwakarma, does not have to study them in the present, is something that will be exciting for all to read.
7. What was the best advice you got while writing?
I think one of the best things that happened to my writing was a lot of half-done works, which received criticism and gave me perspectives on what I was doing wrong in terms of writing and what my focus should be. I read a lot of books on history, papers on string theory, scientific proofs, and articles supporting the theory of time travel, and of course, observed human relations with a closer lens. Researching my topic well and then adding my creative nuances to a story was the best advice I received or would share with other writers.
8. Who’s your all-time favorite author? Which book of his/hers made you fall in love with them?
There are so many, I don’t even know where to begin. I am an avid reader of different genres, and I have loved different authors at different times in my life. As a child, I enjoyed the worlds created by Enid Blyton, such as Famous Five, Secret Seven, and Mallory Towers. I enjoyed the Harry Potter series, with JK Rowling being a master storyteller who has engaged so many of us for so many years. I still play HP trivia quiz games and win! Apart from this, I love authors such as Kiran Desai, Rudyard Kipling, Pearl S. Buck, Roald Dahl, Jeffrey Archer, William Dalrymple, and Chitra Divakaruni Banerjee, among many others. I think it will take me a lifetime to get through the immense wealth of books out there.
9. What is your evergreen tip to the writers out there?
I have written two published books to date, and I find that if you want to actually write a book from start to finish, Remember to do your research on your topic well; read and watch a lot pertaining to the subject. Secondly, map out a blueprint of your book with title headers, a one- to two-line description of what the chapter would consist of, and identify any part of the day where you can keep all other distractions aside, primarily your mobile phones, and write a few pages. Start with 1 page, graduate to 5, and then 10. Do not be afraid of rewriting and reviewing your writing before you give it to the first set of people to edit.
10. What was your hardest scene to write?
There were many plots in the story that needed detailed research and an unbiased approach to creating an interaction or a scene between characters from the past and present. I had to make sure that no one comes across as silly or ridiculous and that each character is well-rounded. Without giving too much away, I would say the scenes between an ailing Chanakya and the title character Vishwakarma definitely gave me a few sleepless nights, and I did rewrite that a few times. To find out what exactly transpires between one of India’s most loved and revered historical figures and Vishwakarma, you need to read the book!
11. Do you have another plot brewing?
Yes, of course, The World of Vishwakarma is aimed to be a three- to four-part series, and I have given clues regarding the next book in the series in Book 1: A hack into the past Vishwakarma, or Vish, is going to go into other important time periods of Indian history and learn about and alter a few more events that will change the course of a lot of things as we know them. We will explore history’s lesser-known characters and events that are well hidden from popular reading in the next book as well. You need to keep following The World of Vishwakarma to know more!
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.in/dp/935776304X?ref=myi_title_dp
