Title of the book : Grow Up Messy!
(A Hilarious Coming of Age Series Book1)
Author : Paromita
Goswami
Genre : Middle
School, Teen and YA
Publisher : Ficus
India
The Blurb :
Childhood is considered to be the best
time of one’s life. What if you get a chance to live it once more with a
five-year-old?
Misry, a naughty five-year-old girl, lives with her parents in a B.S.F border
outpost near Indo-Bangladesh border. But with no schools and friends she feels
very lonely. She tries to befriend some local village kids. But they find her
incompetent in their rural antics. They nickname her Messy as most of the time
she messes up their plan. Can Misry really be a part of the gang?
Set in the early eighties, join Misry in the adventures of her life.
Buying Links
About the author
Paromita Goswami is a writer and
storyteller by passion and a rebel by choice. She says the world is full of
stories and as a writer she loves to pen them down. Her work is not genre
specific. From literary fiction to children book to upcoming paranormal
thriller and women fiction, Paromita Goswami‘s books offer the variety of life
to her readers. Grow Up Messy! is her second book. She debuted in 2015 with
Shamsuddin’s Grave, a literary fiction. Besides writing, she is also the
founder of reading club that enhances book reading habit in children. She lives
in central India with her family.
Follow Author
Character Interviews of the book
In conversation with Paromita Goswami
Grow Up Messy is a story of a 5-year-old girl Misry who
is called as Messy by everyone because of the mess she creates. Misry father
has a job which makes him change cities frequently.
The story is from the point of view of Messy which shows
her innocence and guile. Messy is a ball of anxiousness and excitement which
causes a ruckus and hence she got coined as Messy.
• How did you
come up with the idea? Were you like Misry as a child?
Throughout the story it is cute and sweet moments of a
mother-daughter relationship in which makes the read more enjoyable.
Every child wants to be like Misry, akka Messy. She is
free like a bird and curious like a cat. My inspiration of penning down this
beautiful story is for the kids of today’s generation. They are so piled up in
their studies pressure or are gazette freak that they don’t know what they are
missing in life. The story is set in an era, the early eighties, when there was
no television set in most of our homes.
Was I like Misry as a child? Misry lives in every adult
who had experienced an adventurous
childhood and I am one of them.
• Are there
parenting lessons in Misry’s tale?
She lives with her father Anurag, a paramilitary border
security force (B.S.F) personnel, and mother, Madhavi, in the border out post
(BOP) camp near Indo-Bangladesh border in West Bengal, India.
Misry’s tale has lots of such moments which a parent can
easily relate to. As a Mom I too wondered if it was okay to do that with my
child. For example,
Misry’s character in the book Grow Up Messy! is that of an
innocent child who depends more on her mother for her smaller needs. The best
part is she expects her mother to know everything like a superwoman. She
believes there is nothing which her Ma cannot do or hasn’t seen. So when she
requests her mother to make Pinjiri, something which she had tasted for the
first time elsewhere, it never occurred to her that Ma might not know about its
preparation.
You can read more such facts about the book in my website:
https://paromitagoswami.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/fun-facts-about-the-book-grow-up-messy-the-writing-journey/
• That is an
interesting setting. Tell us how you came up with it?
Cramped in two or three bedroom Apartment in a metro city
with hardly any space for the children to play outside compelled me to look for
an alternate setting. It is the fact today. Children either end up playing in
the street or parking areas.
They say playground is the best teacher. So I made the
setting of my book vast. And there can be no better way than the villages and
the sleepy smaller towns near a metro city.
Since I am Bengali, Kolkata is my first choice of a metro
city. And idealizing a place nearby the big city was never a problem as I had
been there many times to meet my extended family. So that’s how Misry’s Dadu’s
house came into my mind, a sleepy town on the outskirts of Howrah. And the
setting of B.S.F campus is also inspired by my real life experience as I grew
up in that environment. In both the settings I used the facts more that fantasy
as I believe that makes the plot more real.
• Writing
fiction that caters to the children and the young readers is a steep challenge.
What made you choose the genre?
“Choose the genre”, a very good question Paulami. Thanks for
putting it up. Actually I don’t write genre specific books. I am more inclined
towards the story or the plot. So when Messy was penned I had no doubts that it
would be equally liked by both children and adult. Something that each of us as
adults still remember doing in your childhood.
One happy hilarious moment when we can be a child again –
Grow Up Messy!
Yes of course, when
writing for children and young readers there is certain criteria that you have
to keep in mind. Although the book, Grow Up Messy! is from a child’s perspective,
it has been very much appreciated by the adults too.
• You also run
the Raipur Little Minds Book Reading Club. Tell us something about this.
I started this club to enhance reading habits in children.
Print media is one thing today’s kids in our part of world don’t enjoy. Because
it takes effort to understand and visualize when you read a book which in case
of electronic media is effortless. And mostly kids take that way as they are
spending more time getting ready for the rat race in their near future.
Courtesy is us , the adults, parents. We want them to do just about everything
and that too fast, even gulping a glass of milk. So they take easy when they
are left alone. So easy that picking a book and reading for mere pleasure looks
very tiring.
I would like to share an incident here. On my son’s
birthday, I gave each of the invited child Amar Chitra Katha Comics as return
gift. I was very excited when I was distributing it, remembering my childhood
times when I use to share it with my friends. But I was in for a surprise. None
of children were ready to go home. I told them the birthday party was over. They
replied they were waiting for the return gift. I just gave you that I said.
Their answer shocked me.
“It’s no gift. It’s a book.”
I had no doubts that I had to start the reading club and it
has been an year since then.
• Your previous
book Shamsuddin’s Grave has a very different plotline and is a completely
different genre. Tell us something about Shamsuddin’s Grave.
Shamsuddin’s Grave is different zone completely. It’s more
of a tear jerker. A book based on
critical issue of illegal migrants from Bangladesh in Assam. The book talks
about the scenario of today’s issue in the state of Assam. The setting of the
book is in Guwahati and how this issue along with many other is affecting its
people. It is a social drama based on the lives of two people – one is
Shamsuddin, the daily wager who moved into the city for a better living and
another is Latika, the N.G.O activist who is back home after a shattered
personal life. How their paths cross and intermingle on the wide canvas where
so many shades colours from the palette of today’s life paint their life, sometimes deep, sometimes
light.
You can know more about the book from the goodread reviews.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24923650-shamsuddin-s-grave
• Tell us about
the rebel Paromita Goswami. Something crazy that you have done.
Laughs. Rebel yeah! So here it goes.
One day while returning from office I took a cycle rickshaw
to reach home early. Usually I walked home. Certainly not for doing exercise
but for saving money. It was a time when I lived on my own and even a single
penny counted. My father didn’t approve my decision of moving out of the house
and so I knew I had to fend on my own no matter what. So I always kept that in
mind.
So that very day, this guy whose cycle rickshaw I had
boarded was pissed off for some reason. He was muttering under his breath all
the way but brought me safely to my place. It was a fifteen rupees ride. I gave him a twenty rupees note and waited for
him to give me back the five rupees change. But he didn’t. I knew he was
overcharging cause I mostly take rickshaw ride while on my way to the office. I
asked him and he said the rates had changed. We had an argument. I don’t mind
giving tips for good service but this man was trying to steal my money and I
couldn’t let him do that. I didn’t get down from the rickshaw. It stood right
in front of my gate but I didn’t get down.
Looking at my intentions the man started pulling crowd to
gain sympathy saying how an educated
girl like me was ruining his daily business. I saw the crowd looking at me with
questioning eyes. But I didn’t get down. When they started asking me I said
upfront the man was cheating me. Luckily, most of the people in the crowd were
Rickshaw boarders like me and took my side. The man ultimately had to pay me
back the extra money he had taken.
Sometimes when I still remember that incident I laugh out
loud now.
Message for new writers.
Enjoy your writing. Don’t get influenced by what others are
writing. If you have a story inside you then don’t hesitate to bring it out.
Someone somewhere is waiting to read it.
Blurb: All She wanted was love...
