By Divya Cutinho
Mangaluru, Oct 31: Smitten by mythological books at a young age, penning down stories was never a challenge for Rukhsar Shafi. Her mind could spin creative tales and she always felt an urge to tell them. Today, the 23-year-old is one of Mangaluru’s youngest novelists with her first published novel 'The Numinous Personage'.
Daughter of Mohammed Shafi and Fouzia Begaum, Rukhsar started writing stories while pursuing her SSLC. "I was in 1st grade, when I watched the Harry Potter movie. My sisters were huge fans of the books. I was lost in the land of Hogwarts and the possibility of 9/3 quarters in Kings Cross Station, that often I would imagine myself there. But when I started reading Christopher Paolini's ‘Inheritance Cycle’, L J Smith's ‘Night World’ series and Rick Riordan's ‘Percy Jackson’ series, I found my calling,” she says.
“Mythologies always fascinated me. Greek, Roman, Norse, and even Egyptian, their stories, their pantheons were so vast and so intriguing. There were tons of books based on these mythologies that I wondered why aren't there many on Celtic Mythology. Thus, I started my adventure in the depths of the Celtic pantheon,” she adds.
Rukhsar finished her high school in Cambridge School Neermarga and PU in St Aloysius College. The journey has not been easy, she says. "Though I started writing, I had to stop due to board exams. Meantime, I wrote short stories in PU and my teachers encouraged me to pursue writing saying that I was pretty good at it. Then I started studying architecture and was caught up in it. However, with the help of my sisters Faraz Zeeba and Sahreesh, I completed the book," she says adding that her parents motivated her to finish the book.
Pursuing architecture in Manipal, Rukhsar is a writer, author, thinker and storyteller with an aim to create a world of fantasy which can suck her readers into it. "I want to reach out to the readers. The books today I find are not reaching out anymore. I think this genre helps to widen the readers’ base in the world. If they read my book, they will be lost in it. I have tried my best to create a world where readers could lose themselves at the same time relate to it. This is not something which is simple and very connecting to the normal people or about normal things that Indian authors do write.”
Fiction, fantasy, romance, thriller, comedy, slice of life or non-fiction, Rukhsar says she loves them all when queried about her favourite genre. “I like fantasy and mystery novels. Mostly I love reading fiction,” she says.
Her book was published in September 2017 by Pblishing.com and Maple Press. The book was also published in paperback format in September this year by Pblishing.com. Talking about her book, the 23-year-old reveals, "It is the first book of the ‘Guardian’ series. It is a young adult fantasy fiction and it is based on Celtic mythology. I wanted to try something different since there is no great book on Celtic mythology. I have researched through a lot of journals, Wikipedia and papers written by Irish scholars to understand the basic concepts of Celtic mythology. It is basically to reach out to young readers in particular,"
Apart from writing, Rukhsar loves photography, road trips and art. She is an avid sports fan and has a varied collection of music. She says she is obsessed with stationary.
She advises the youth and children to never stop the habit of reading. “You might have phones but keeping a book with you and getting lost in that world, is the best feeling.”