India’s glorious past has always been a favourite topic for writers, resulting in a wide gamut of books on our history, architecture and legendary personalities.
Venturing in the same league, vice president of the Flag Foundation of India, Shallu Jindal recently launched her compilation called Freedom, a pocket-size book that takes you on a journey through India in 90 pages.
“On my travels abroad and in India, I observed that we either have big coffee-table books on India or ones that are very serious. So I wanted to come up with a small pocket book which would talk about the essence of India in a quick read. I wanted it to be an ideal souvenir from our country,” she says.
For someone who is a fan of literature, wasn’t it difficult to shortlist the content for the book? “I was clear about the people, excerpts and places I wanted to mention. I wanted to talk about well known contemporary Indian writers, thinkers, politicians, artists and legendary poets, spiritual leaders, freedom fighters, and those who have influenced my life. I’ve taken names from the list of personalities I had read about. It wasn’t a random selection. For instance, Sarojini Naidu’s speeches have always inspired me, so I’ve used some excerpts from them. I had done a book on Mahatma Gandhi in the past, so he was undoubtedly a part of the book. From the present leaders, I used names which many are acquainted with, like Rahul Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor and others,” adds Shallu.
The book also features spiritual personalities like Kabir. “These were works I read as a child and their memories were imprinted in my mind. I wanted it to be a book that would motivate people to know more about our country,” she says.
And keeping the book small proved a tall task for the production team. “This is the smallest book on India. Our printer had major problems. We don’t have a book on India in this size,” she says.