Blending sci-fi and historical fiction

16-year-old Revanth Ukkalam is rapidly morphing into a young historian with his new book ‘Historia,’ connecting the past and the present

While every other child his age spends time playing video games or sports, sixteen-year-old Revanth Ukkalam, currently a student of Rishi Valley School, Hyderabad has kept himself busy gorging down historical facts and books written by Romila Thapar and the likes – which he never gets bored of.

Revanth recently launched his very own book titled ‘Historia’. “It all started in 8th class when I was studying in Silver Oaks School; I started a magazine called ‘Gotcha’ that had a lot of historical information. As I wrote many articles over time, I was encouraged to make it into a book,” shares the young author, who aims to study archaeology in the future.

In school, history is generally not a subject every student enjoys studying. It is usually associated with words like ‘boredom’ or ‘difficulty’ because of the task of remembering the correct dates. However, Revanth admits that he doesn’t know it all, either.

He says, “History is not all about names and dates. Even I don’t remember names and dates. History is more of a dialogue between the past and present, as EH Carr says in his book ‘What is History’.”

The book ‘Historia’, which contains illustrations either drawn or compiled by Revanth, is a blend of sci-fi and historical fiction. The three main characters in the book travel by a time machine into 1008 AD Thanjavur and many other places, to explore the past. The book is divided into three sections, each of which deals with a different time period.

The first section contains Indian history, though not in a chronological order in order to keep the story lively; the second section is on world history including the Egyptian civilisation, Apartheid, etc.; and the third section deals with 20th century history including the World Wars.

So where did Revanth find the time for researching and documenting all this? His fascination for history never stopped him from both doing well at regular studies and tapping the creative side of his mind to come up with information that is sure to engage children.

“I used to write during my holidays, weekends and even on many school days after 8 or 9 pm,” he explains. He successfully completed the book in October 2014, after which, he published the PDF version of it on Amazon’s Kindle.

The book’s hardbound edition which materialised months later was launched on June 12 this year at Silver Oaks School. “The principal and correspondent of Silver Oaks were instrumental in this journey as they mentored and encouraged me to write this book. It was they who even got my book printed,” adds Revanth.

Having read books such as ‘A Short History of the World’ by HG Wells and Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Glimpses of World History’, Revanth reasons, “A lot of the societal problems have their roots in the past. We can use history to diagnose these issues.”

Through it all, Revanth has received constant encouragement from his parents who allowed him to dream and pore over several history books that he claims he never tires of. Despite it all, akin to anyone his age, Revanth too, watches a lot of movies as they release, and has a greater interest in knowing who has directed the film, etc.

Seeking to continue a dialogue with the past, he has already started writing a sequel, which will have his characters interacting with historians, anthropologists and others who have provided written accounts and facts in the past.

By:Elita Enoch