Having been fond of reading mystery books since childhood, Akshay Chowdhry, group vice-president of Gemini Edibles and Fats India Pvt Ltd, saw himself going back to that interest when the lockdown gave him ample time to pen a mystery book.
Among the mystery books that Akshay read as a child, he says his favourite was Enid Blyton’s Five Find-Outers series. “Being fond of mystery stories, I was naturally inclined towards writing one. My book is in a similar vein to Enid Blyton’s mysteries but in an Indian setting,” says Akshay, who has based his book in a Dehradun setting.
Brought up in Hyderabad, Akshay used to spend summer vacations with his grandparents in Dehradun. And those childhood memories came back to him through his book, he says.
“The book has a group of five children, who live in a nice neighbourhood in Dehradun. They are not super heroes, they are not wizards or genies. They are regular children. Their main aim is seeking camaraderie and finding a purpose. In this case, the purpose is to solve a mystery. There are a few twists and turns in this fast-paced book with 20 chapters, and some adrenaline-generating moments which I hope will get the young readers hooked once they pick up my book,” says Akshay.
Dehradun is also where Akshay first visited a circus and it led to an idea of mystery and circus in the book.
Akshay, who hopes to convert the book into a series — The PI Club Stories, with PI Club and the Circus being the first one, emphasises that he wants to inculcate the habit of reading among children today. “I feel children today spend a lot of time with their gadgets. Children who grew up in the 90s and earlier didn’t have so many distractions. We used to spend a lot of time playing outdoors during our free time. This book, despite its modern setting, takes children back to a simpler time where spending a lot of time together was the sole purpose of our everyday play sessions,” he shares.
PI Club and the Circus is available on Amazon and Flipkart.
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