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New Indian Express
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
A modern-day mythology in making
It all started with a laddoo . Not just any laddoo , but the sort that appears in puja trays, lovingly prepared by mothers with a no-touch-until-offering rule. The kind that calls to you across the room when no one's looking. And for Parvathy Venkatachalam, it also became the gateway to a story. A question sparked the beginning of what would become 'Laddoo Mysteries: The Wrath of Krishna' — a 30,000-word novel she began at age 12, and self-published with the support of her family two years later. 'I was thinking, what if she catches me? And I was like, maybe she won't. But what if god catches me?' she recalls. Parvathy, a class 10 student at TI School, is not an established writer yet. Her book is a curious mix of mythological re-imaginings, sibling-style banter with Krishna, and the sweet pull of laddoos — all spun into a warm, mischievous tale. Her protagonist, Vaishu, shares a lot in common with her, but is not quite her. 'It's a weird relationship between me and my character,' she says. 'I know it has parts of me, but I also know that it's like my child.' Penning down curiosity The writing journey, much like the plot of her book, was not planned. 'I thought it would be like a one-page, two-page thing, just putting down my thoughts and experiences. But it turned out to be more than 30,000 words,' says Parvathy. Her father, Venkatachalam Ramakrishnan encouraged her every step of the way — even reaching out to publishers and finally choosing to self-publish via Notion Press after facing several rejections. 'That was a good experience for me to understand what rejection feels like,' she says. 'Even if you get rejected 20 times, 30 times, it's good to feel that way so you won't get disappointed the next time it happens.' Editing was, in Parvathy's words, 'gruelling but surreal.' The process took nearly six to seven months, over multiple revisions with her father. 'I actually got massive imposter syndrome when writing this. I was like, this sounds like me, but it doesn't feel like I wrote it,' she says. But each draft, each conversation helped. 'My dad felt it's good for it to be bad at the beginning so it will show your truth over time and over different books you will write.' The result is a book that doesn't just retell mythology — it questions who gets to be part of those stories. 'In mainstream media, all these different mythological stories are usually in the perspective of more prevalent people,' she says. To challenge that, each chapter in her book features 'three to four different retellings,' including tribal stories and regional interpretations she found deep in books and internet archives. 'I wrote that to show that in mythology, nobody's left out.' And that includes her Krishna. 'I always felt that Krishna was like a brother to me,' she says, envisioning the deity as a playful, familiar presence rather than a distant god. 'I don't really think it's wrong. I think it's quite fine for everybody to have a different perspective.' In a publishing world that often prefers gods to be blue and characters to look a certain way, Parvathy insists on keeping Krishna as he was — dark-skinned and rooted in the meaning of his name. 'I think that in most of the scriptures that I have read, he was always dark, from the place he had come from. In my book, mostly he is dark and mostly, it's a true depiction of him.' If all goes to plan, Laddoo Mysteries will expand into a quartet. 'I actually finished the first draft of the second book about one month ago,' she says casually, almost as if she's talking about homework. But Parvathy's vision is clear — to write for kids like her who love mythology, who want to see different sides of it.
The Hindu
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Food memoir Shadrachulu is an ode to Deepthi Tanikella's family memories
The third story in Deepthi Tanikella's debut book, Shadruchulu, is titled 'Osmania Biskoot'. A heartwarming tale of her grandfather's tryst with an Irani cafe when he came to Secunderabad. 'The chapter is a tribute to thatha and the relationships he shared with the family,' says the Bengaluru-based storyteller. 'Osmania Biskoot' is one among the book's six stories, each dedicated to the six tastes savoured in the Ugadi pachadi: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and spicy. 'These tastes are similar to the emotions we deal with, and each chapter has a story linked to an emotion, followed by a recipe,' shares Deepthi. And giving life to each of these stories are six full-page illustrations by artist Mounica Tata, who used Deepthi's family pictures, old recipe books, and letters as inspiration. 'We both sat down and went through old photographs, diaries, and I figured Deepthi wanted to bring back that era's nostalgia in the book. I knew my trademark comic art style wouldn't work for the illustrations so I went in for warmer tones of terracotta and mustard, and brought in smaller details like a pearl necklace and ribbons that Deepthi is seen wearing in one childhood photograph,' says Mounica, who has also added fun, spot illustrations on the recipe pages. 'This isn't a traditional recipe-heavy cookbook, so I added drawings connected to the story. For instance, the Omo washing powder illustration depicts the time Deepthi's mother was a door-to-door salesperson for the brand.' Deepthi adds that the stories take a fictional turn to bring in her perspective. In 'Osmania Biskoot', for instance, the story highlights thatha leaving behind a letter for Deepthi with three wishes. The last one: to make and serve everyone the biscuits for his final rituals. 'I introduced the character of Reshma aapa who went on to teach me how to make the biscuits. This idea stemmed from my grandmother who was an orthodox woman. My father and his seven brothers had friends from all religions, and would introduce them to her to make her comfortable.' For Deepthi, writing Shadrachulu (published by Notion Press) was no cakewalk. Not because of the work that goes into the process of writing a book and then getting it published, but because it was a way to channel grief. Grief that came from losing her 27-year-old brother in 2004, followed by the demise of her parents. 'It wasn't easy,' she tells me, 'Letting trauma lead me was not something I was willing to do, so writing this book was like catharsis.' The seed for Shadrachulu was sown a few years after Deepthi lost her brother, but triggered after her mother passed away in 2022. 'I thought that if I don't do it now, then when? How will my children know about my family? says Deepthi. 'Growing up, my Nana (father) was always in the kitchen. They both enjoyed their roles: my mother was bold and outgoing and handled tasks such as paying bills and going to the bank. The kitchen was my father's zone.' Soon after her mother's passing, Deepthi recalls trying to make avekai pachadi, and how she came across 'a tiny book in Amma's handwriting with detailed recipes of food and gardening'. 'I made the pachadi and put out a video on Instagram about my story,' shares Deepthi, who also made her profile public in the hope of finding like-minded individuals who connected grief with food. 'The next morning, I had 15,000 followers, with many reaching out with similar stories.' One story that stuck was of a woman who had lost her mother as a child, but remembered the taste of the sivangi pulusu she used to make. 'I helped her recreate the dish, and it was an emotional journey,' says Deepthi, who has bridged this very connection between food and emotions in her book. Be it the chapter that speaks of the love letters her parents exchanged while they were engaged to be married and Nana took over the kitchen to break societal norms, or dedicating the usirikaya murabba chapter to her late brother. 'While these are my life's stories, a few, like the usirikaya pachadi, are fictionalised in the sense that it is my perspective on how my parents felt after he passed.' Deepthi says she had started writing down her memories for many years, but was not ready to put them out in the world. 'I love storytelling; and I learnt it from my father, and my uncle, who writes stories in the Telugu film industry. My mother used to tell me often that I have the gift of writing, but was doing everything but that! Even my father who had many writer friends said he did not want to push me. Shadrachulu is a tribute to them,' says Deepthi, who has coincided the book's launch with her company, Pinch of South. 'There is no exclusive archive for South Indian food and I hope to change that. We are launching a podcast on women in the culinary world in South India, and hope to tell the story of food brands in the coming years.' While Deepthi's long-term plan is to turn these six stories into short films, she believes the banyan tree metaphor fits this phase of her life perfectly. 'Just like the mycelium are always under the shadow of the banyan tree, I was under my parents' wings. It was only after they moved on, did my writing journey begin, and I now realise this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm loving it,' she concludes. Priced at ₹599 for the paperback, and ₹799 for hardcover, Shadrachulu is available on Amazon and Flipkart
