Laugh with Ashok Rajagopalan's Ha... Ha... Hasya
Author and illustrotor Ashok Rajagopalan is out with a new chapter book for kids. Published by Tulika Books,Ha... Ha... Hasya is a humorous, entertaining book about chaos between Devas and Asuras.
Very much, thank you for asking! Writing funny stories is fun. I laughed at my own
jokes while writing Hasya.
2. How long did you take to finish the book? Was the entire book written in a few weeks?
This is awkward, but I’ll tell you the truth. I wrote the first three chapters about ten years
ago, but shelved it to concentrate on my illustration projects. Then, a year ago, I
submitted the three chapters with chapter outlines for the rest of the book to Tulika
Publishers. They liked the premise, and felt the novel showed promise. They promised to
consider it for publication, and I promised to finish it soon.
But I couldn’t. It took me months. I suffered from a kind of writer’s block after 80% of the book was done. And my apartment with people dropping in and out almost all the time was not an inspiring ambience. Then, “Idea!” I joined the British Council Library, where I could sit for hours with my laptop, surrounded by my kind of people: readers and librarians. There I finished Hasya. The first three chapters took me a day to write, and the rest of the book, six months.
3. How difficult is it to write and illustrate your own story? Unlike picture books chapter books take a lot of time to complete.
Not difficult since it is your own vision, and there’s no danger of the author not liking the illustrations. The writing of this book took more time than illustrations. Illustration was planned properly and executed on time.
4. How much research was involved while writing this book?
A little. I had to check Sanskrit dictionaries for the mantras, and for naming the asuras. There was no research needed for the plot, since I know more about Indian mythology than most people.
5. How did Varikutti emerge in the book? A pig is an unusual choice of character as a pet? Do you think any other animal could have replaced Varikutti without affecting the plot?
I hope you loved Varikutti! Vari is short for Varaha, as you must have guessed. I wanted Shanti to have a pet, to highlight the asuri girl’s motherliness. I could have given her a regular pet, a cat or a dog but the piglet, because of its porcine qualities, comes in useful to solve a muddy problem in the story.
6. The primary characters have an unusual jawline. What made you chose the unusual style?
I wanted to try out a new illustration style to suit the wackiness of the story. Otherwise I tend to draw blobby people.
7. There is zero bloodshed and gore in your tale of asuras and devas.
Right, just the threat of death or bloodshed. I am a pacifist and anti-racist. I guess it shows in my work. I just wrote a story I would like to read, I think.
By the way, isn’t it wrong to portray an entire race as bad? Or good? So my asuras are people like everybody else, a mixture of good, bad and funny.
8. What came first? The plot for your book or the character Hasya?
Hasya came first. And I wrote the first two chapters without the whole plot in mind, just defining the characters and the setting, as I went.
9. There are many more chapter books in the pipeline. Has the transition from picture books to chapter books being easy?
I had always planned to write chapter books. It’s easier to write chapter books than picture books, though it takes longer to write a chapter book. For me, at least. My mental age swings from 10 to 12, so it’s easy for me to write for that age-group.
10. Will you continue to illustrate books for other authors?
(PS: I am an affiliate of Amazon. When you buy the book through the above hyperlink, I will receive a small percentage of sales which helps me run Kahani Takbak, a platform to promote Indian books, authors and illustrators.)
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