Trapped

Trapped Sunshine

Trapped Sunshine

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Text © 2022 Scholastic India Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic India Pvt. Ltd. A subsidiary of Scholastic Inc., New York, 10012 (USA). Publishers since 1920, with international operations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, India, and Hong Kong. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to: Scholastic India Pvt. Ltd. A-27, Ground Floor, Bharti Sigma Centre Infocity-1, Sector 34, Gurgaon-122001 (India) Cover images from: pixabay.com First edition: June 2022 ISBN: 978-93-5471-2-99-9 Printed at: New Delhi

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Trapped Sunshine

Contents Preface

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Mentor’s Note | Sucharita Dutta-Asane

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Solacium | Aanyaa Singh

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Her Serpent Dagger | Aashna Dutt

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And Let Me Stay among the Stars | Aditya Jha

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Cruel? Maybe Just a Little | Akriti Duggal

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The Enigma of Time | Anurima Datta Biswas

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An Imbroglio | Avni Dhar

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Brave | Ekamjot Singh

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A Final Goodnight | Kavya Arjun

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Aria | Keosha Krishnan

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The Last Trip | Mayank Dalmia

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Is It Wise to Grow Up? | Navya Kumbalimutt

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The Golden Box | Rijul Srivastava

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A Glitch in the Matrix | Roshni Baral

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Cursed | Saksham Sharma

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The Third Hour | Shayna Vinoth

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The Trivial Murder | Shringi Singh Tomar

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The Twins’ Curse | Simar Narula

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The Forgotten People | Suhani Madan

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The Demise of Happiness | Tushita Gupta

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Trapped Sunshine

Preface ‘You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page.’ Annie Proulx

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he first criteria required to become an author is a love of words and stories. It is this deep love for words that drives a person to become a writer and express their thoughts to the world at large. The Scholastic Writers Academy was conceived as a safe space where children and adults from all over the country can share thoughts and unravel their web of ideas, bringing forth into the world a tangible version of their imagination. The book that you hold now is the result of one such group of aspiring writers who have been mentored to put together a fabulous collection of tales. Fuelled by information at their fingertips and an ardent curiosity well beyond their years, these young minds are ready to take on the world, one powerful sentence at a time.

Neeraj Jain Managing Director, Scholastic India Trapped Sunshine

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Trapped Sunshine

Mentor’s note

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tories capture the spirit of an age. What is the spirit of this anthology then, put together by a group of thirteen to seventeen-year-olds written at the far end of a tumultuous year? If I were to have only a clutch of words to describe it by, it would be the ‘space in our minds’ that captures the zeitgeist of this book. The nineteen writers here are willing, ready and able to probe this spirit from various perspectives, enriched by candour, honesty and a hyperactive imagination. The mind, then, is crucial to these narratives. Aanyaa (‘Solacium’), Akriti (‘Cruel? Maybe Just a Little’), Keosha (‘Aria’), Shayna (‘The Third Hour’) and Aditya (‘And Let Me Stay among the Stars’) do a fine job of journeying into the minds of their characters. Trapped Sunshine

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MENToR’S NoTE

Loss and life issues also raise myriad questions, such as in Navya’s ‘Is it Wise to Grow Up?’ In ‘An Imbroglio’, Avni’s naval commander is forced into confronting the self and finding enough remorse within himself to bring about a change that was once beyond his scope. Rijul’s male protagonist in ‘The Golden Box’ arrives at his realization regarding natural laws through pain, regained joy and loss again, a complete journey. Love and its inherent violence mark ‘Her Serpent Dagger’ by Aashna and ‘Brave’ by Ekamjot – same sex love and royal intrigue in one and a father’s desperate love in the other. Horror and its effects on the mind find a home in Saksham’s graphically narrated ‘Cursed’ and three other stories – these are stories of magic (Simar’s ‘The Twins’ Curse’); a trip that goes horribly wrong (Mayank’s ‘The Last Trip’) and a different kind of killing, one that will leave you smiling (Shringi’s ‘The Trivial Murder’). Roshni’s sci-fi, ‘A Glitch in the Matrix’ revolves around a simulation gone wrong, just enough to leave a loophole for humanity to save itself. In a book that traverses such a vast array of topics, can cli-fic be far behind? Kavya’s ‘A Final Goodnight’ is myth and reality, told to us by Gaia’s own daughter, left behind to take care of Earth. Is she able to? Well … Sucharita Dutta-Asane

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Trapped Sunshine

Solacium AAnyAA Singh

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Aanyaa Singh ‘A light heart lives long!’ I deeply admire this phrase by William Shakespeare. I am your average fifteen-year-old ambivert teenager trying to thrive and enjoy her time on this planet that we humans call Earth. Like almost every teenager, I have developed a liking for music, not a specified genre, but I idolize BTS. Music cheers me up and compliments my ever-changing mood. Moving on, I am curious about the world around me and love to discover what it has to offer! I take pleasure in calling myself a dreamer because I often find myself dreaming about anything and everything, be it in my sleep or while I am awake; I find it amusing. I am fond of the Harry Potter series. I absolutely love watching and reading science-fiction, some of my favourites include Interstellar and Inception. I genuinely enjoy gathering knowledge about quantum physics and space. My purpose in life is to be happy, making others smile is what makes me happy and writing helps me do that, although I am not quite sure if emotional plots deliver happiness to people, because those are probably the most frequent ideas that spontaneously pop up in my mind. Additionally, writing assists me in expressing myself, and hopefully that is what I am here to do! .................................................................................................................................................. Aanyaa Singh

DLF Public School, Ghaziabad

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Trapped Sunshine

‘H

i, Mom. I’m doing well, but I miss you so much.’ Hrishit was talking to the roses, again. ‘There is not a second that goes by when I don’t think of you. Will you never come back?’ Hrishit’s mother loved roses and when she died four months ago, they became a substitute, but could never replace her. ‘Do you know, Grandpa loves Mohammed Rafi songs. He has a dozen cassettes of his songs! And you should have seen the look on Grandma’s face when she realized that Facebook was a social media platform and not a book of faces.’ Hrishit lived with his grandparents now and though they tried their best to distract him from the loss of his parents, there was hardly anything they could do to take away his yearning for them. He felt lost and lonely.

It was Friday. Hrishit walked desultorily in the backyard, missing his parents, their laughter and strictness, when,

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SoLACIUM

suddenly, he let out a terrified screech. He could feel himself falling through a hole. ‘What in the ever-loving heaven is going on?!’ Terrified, he shut his eyes. And then, equally suddenly, he thudded on to the hard ground. Shaken, Hrishit stood up and looked around. He was on a street close to his grandparent’s house. Everything seemed similar yet different, as if the air he inhaled came straight out of an air purifier. The sky was blue and clear, the refreshing fragrance of wet mud subtle. He had never seen the surroundings this clean, this green. Am I hallucinating? He shrugged off the thought, disregarded the new environment and went into his grandparents’ house. As he pulled the door open, his jaw fell. What was this! His father was sitting on the recliner in the lounge, talking on the phone. His mother was busy at her laptop. What is happening? Am I dead? Is this heaven? ‘Hrishit, honey, pass me a glass of water please.’ His mother’s sweet silvery voice was like melody to his ears. Hands trembling, Hrishit poured water from the jug and as he passed her the glass. He felt a strong urge to hug his mother, like it was the last time he would do so, as he bent to make up for the height difference and put his arms around her.

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Trapped Sunshine

Aanyaa Singh

She looked up at him, bewildered, then hugged him back. ‘Hrishit, are you ill?’ she asked. ‘Me? Ill? Why?’ ‘Then, do you need some favour? Come on, Hrishu, spill the beans, won’t you?’ ‘Ha-ha-ha, and here I was thinking you were serious for once. But, with all sincerity, Ma, I do love you. Didn’t realize your true value until I ... lost you.’ ‘What?’ ‘Nothing. Just that you mean the world to me.’ ‘Awww, come here, you!’ He pondered over the possibilities of this situation: I am definitely NOT hallucinating. I touched them, so it can’t be fake, but how can dead people come alive? And then it clicked! Of course, this … must be an alternate reality! Yes! I have read about it in fiction, watched countless movies. All this is way too familiar. It was decided: he had stumbled upon a parallel world, quite similar to his own, but this new one was idyllic. He christened it ‘Solacium’, Latin for ‘solace’. Then it occurred to Hrishit – there was a possibility of his other self being alive here. However, after a thorough inspection, he concluded that there was no one identical to him living here. This made it all the more tempting to stay. He would fit in like a puzzle piece. of course, staying

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SoLACIUM

was not permanent. He wanted to be in touch with his reality, but he could keep switching between worlds. After all, his parents were here in this alternate world. So, on the first day, he stayed in Solacium for about five hours. on the second, he stayed for about eight hours. Time seemed to be distorted in both the worlds and people who he talked to were oblivious to his travels, or so he thought. As days went by, he found himself spending more and more time in Solacium. Whenever he missed his parents, he would leave to be with them. Quickly, he went from blaming God to thanking him a thousand times a day. Soon, though, if asked he would deny it; he began to mix up events between the two worlds, and then, the previous night, he almost blurted out about Solacium to his grandparents.

Hrishit’s grandparents, too, had begun to notice changes in his behaviour. often, he seemed lost, even when sitting in the same room. on the other hand, when he was active and attentive, he was cheerful, smiling contentedly. It was odd, given how his behaviour had changed in the past week. They were quietly discussing their individual observations when his grandfather decided to check on him. When he opened the door to Hrishit’s bedroom, he

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Aanyaa Singh

found his seventeen-year-old grandson talking animatedly to someone. Grandfather stood listening carefully, trying to understand what was happening. Was Hrishit hallucinating? And then he realized. Hrishit was conversing with his parents! His parents? Later that day, he called Hrishit out into the garden. ‘Come, sit with me, Hrishit.’ ‘Yes, Grandpa, shoot!’ Hrishit flashed a cheeky grin. ‘So, I heard you talking to your parents, son. Is there something you want to talk about, something we should know?’ Hrishit didn’t answer. ‘Have you been hallucinating?’ The question brought Hrishit’s world crashing down. This can’t be, he thought desperately. Is Solacium just a figment of my imagination then? Someone please tell me it isn’t. It is so real, so joyful. ‘Hrishu, it’s difficult to digest the fact that they are not here anymore, even for me. But we will have to, eventually, son. I am here for you, just like I was when you were scared of falling off your cycle as a child. You trusted me then, didn’t you?’ said Grandpa. ‘Yes.’ ‘Please trust me now too, honey.’

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19 AUTHORS | 19 STORIES | 1 DREAM

‘It was decided: he had stumbled upon a parallel world, quite similar to his own, but this new one was idyllic …’ ‘Moments later, she woke up and groggily tried to push herself out of the hellhole. It was getting harder by the second to breathe …’ ‘The paper feels brittle in her hold, so easy to tear, like the intuition about her parents …’

Nineteen brilliant minds come together from across the country with one shared dream—to be a published author! Bound by their creativity, they unveil their nuanced stories that will keep you enthralled and mesmerized.

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