13 y/o Novelist Ithalar Tea Party.

Hasini: Hi everybody, welcome back to the GYM. Today, as our guest, we have Akshath who is a fifteen-year-old. He is a young author, and he launched his first book two years back, the Ithalar Tea Party. So come, let us interview him, let us ask him about his journey and about his new launch.

Akshath: Hi, I am Akshath Jaganmohan, I am fifteen years old. I am the author of the Ithalar Tea Party. I am going to be interacting with Hasini about my journey in writing this book.

?Hasini: You developed this story, and now it is published as a book. I have the book here… But it would be better if you explain the story.

?Akshath: Okay, so, the story is set in the 1950s. It is a murder mystery that takes place in the 1950s. Near Ooty, there is a place called Ithalar. It is a tea town. So in this place, in the story, there is an estate on a hill, and in this estate, one morning, the police find a dead body. There are a few murders throughout the story in certain cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad, that are linked to this murder. How the police link these murders and find the killer is the story. And then there is one part of the story which goes back to the pre-independence era, so the book is basically a coalesce of these two timelines. ?

Hasini: Where can we find your book? If somebody is interested, where can they find the book??

Akshath: The book is available both as a Kindle edition and a paperback edition on Amazon. It is available at the Odyssey book store in Chennai, and on the online store of Odyssey as well. It is also available as an Ebook on Google Books. Please go check it out!

?Hasini: How did your interest in writing begin? There is a story behind every successful child that I have interviewed, so what is yours?

?Akshath: My story began when I started reading. It is the same for every writer. Any good writer would be a good reader. It applies to me as well. Once I could read, I did read a lot, but I started reading bigger books when I was about nine. That’s exactly when I started writing.

?Hasini: You won the first prize for writing a story for a storytelling competition and I believe that was your turning point. So, tell us about that.

?Akshath: Okay, so, at one point, I wrote a novel, a childish story for three, four years. And then I realized that publishing a book would take some time. So I started getting into blogging. I wrote on a blog for some time. And then I started writing for short story competitions. One of those competitions was conducted by my publisher, Readen Publications. I won first place in that competition. It took me about a month to get the results, and after that long wait, I got to know that I got the first prize, and the following lines in that email, the editors had left feedback on the story and that they would be happy to publish it as a novel if I extended it. And that was my turning point.

?Hasini: So yeah, slowly, step by step, you grow, and there is a turning point. That is how it goes for all the children I have interviewed, even me and The First Step. For me, Brainfeed was the turning point. So, how did you feel about your launch? And being an author at your age, how does it feel??

Akshath: It was actually a very great experience. It was my long-time dream, and it is a dream come true, so it was great exposure. And I learned a lot because when I started writing, I used to search for how the publishing industry works. I had a very vague idea about how it worked, and I thought I knew everything, I did not know anything until the time I got published. ?

Hasini: You at least got to learn a lot of things, so next time, you are aware of how it works. How is the feedback for your book? Do you have any critical ones? You can share both critical and positive ones. ?

Akshath: So, obviously, there have been mixed reviews. The reviews are mostly great, nobody is being completely negative just yet, but some people feel that here and there, some things are a bit off. And that’s when it gets interesting. When somebody feels something is off, that’s when I want to defend myself by finding reasons. That’s really fun as well, so there isn’t anything that is really negative. It is just a new thing to learn. ?

Hasini: Who is your favourite author? Mine is always J K Rowling, because the very first book I read was Harry Potter, and that was only because it was a J K Rowling book.??

Akshath: My favourite author… You can’t say I have one favourite author, because I have lots and lots of favourite authors. But right now, it would probably be Amish Tripathi, the author of the Shiva Trilogy, Ram Chandra Series, and Indic Chronicles. I love him as an author because his language is rich. His way of telling stories, his style, his way of delivering emotions, I like everything about his books. ?

Hasini: Great! So, in this generation, reading is not given much importance. What is your view on that? According to you, how important is reading??

Akshath: In context to what I have seen, I am a writer today, because I was and am still a reader. The more you read, the more you learn, whether it is vocabulary, or general facts, or just about anything. Always, anything that you read, is something that you learn. Even if it is a small sentence that you read, it is something you learn. ?

Hasini: I agree. Whenever we read, we learn something new. For instance, even though Harry Potter is a fictional story, I learned that even I can read a book! So it really doesn’t matter if it is a storybook. ?

Akshath: Yeah! It doesn’t matter if it is a storybook. Just read!

?Hasini: Okay, so you read, you write, what are your other hobbies?

?Akshath: I like all sorts of art forms. Of course, I don’t perform them all very well. I like drawing, sometimes. The drawings won’t be that good, and they definitely won’t be that great, but it is just a pastime. Sometimes, I listen to songs Mostly I write, but other times, I either listen to songs or draw something. ?

Hasini: I like that you feel modest and that you say that your drawing is not that great, but you know, it is your own creativity, and your own style. The main thing we have to focus on is school. Anyways, in this journey of publishing a book, you must have faced some challenges, so what are some of them? ?

Akshath: Yes, I did face challenges in this journey, mainly during the editing phase, a few of the plotlines had logical mistakes. And then, there is a lot of travel in the book, throughout the book, the characters travel to many parts of the country. The travel time that it would take now, is not the same as how it would have been in those days. So, the editing process was really confusing, but I was able to manage it because there was an editing process. So those were a few of the challenges that I faced. ?

Hasini: So, something that I would like to tell you is that, if you see my very first interview, and the ones that I have been doing in recent times, of course, there is a change. A journey is where you learn things. So you keep learning. In the beginning, I was really bothered, but now, I am used to it. Because I kept getting better. And thank you for spending your time with us.?

Feel free to contact me about speaker events, comments, and anything else at [email protected]! You can also connect with me on?LinkedIn , follow me on?Medium , and check out my??www,thefirststephasini.com, ?or?Instagram

The First Step book, which I wrote, is all about the true stories of young achievers. You can order a copy of the book by simply clicking on the following link:

Shri. M. Venkaiah Naidu, former Vice President of India, and Dr. Shylendra Babu, DGP of Tamil Nadu, wrote the foreword to the book.

You can also watch more young achievers interview at

I would like to invite you to my next book launch Whizz Kidz ... Lessons from Little Legends in the month of January 2023 . If you are living in Chennai and want to be part, request you to DM me so that I can send out invitations when it is ready.

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