Anandini Sengupta

The first time Anandini wrote a poem – it was what she calls a poem extension – a section that she added on to an existing poem, to do away with her dilemma about the open-endedness of the original. Fascinatingly, the original is a poem that so many children over the ages have heard but have never stopped to think beyond. The very first time you meet Anandini Sengupta, the 13-year-old writer and poet from Kolkata, you are struck by her imagination and the resilience with which she has borne the pandemic. A student of Modern High School in Kolkata, Anandini loves her school and her friends, and like the rest of them, she also found herself confined to her home when the pandemic struck and her school shut down. But for her, the troubles didn’t end there. A medical emergency landed her in the hospital during a time when most people would have given an arm and a leg to avoid any trips to one. In her position, most other people would have given in to the blues. But not Anandini. In spite of being confined to hospital beds on multiple occasions, and dealing with the aftermaths of surgeries while at home, she continued her studies with the same vigour. And in hindsight, what probably kept her going was her rich imagination and joy for storytelling, as well as the love and support of her parents, peers and teachers. When asked about this difficult period in her life, Anandini tells you that she spent the time making the most of what life had brought her way, befriending the nurses, talking to them and collecting their stories – each experience an idea from real life that she tucks away in her mind somewhere, to be resurrected for a story or a poem someday.