JULIEN NEAVES
When first-time author and entrepreneur Asha Biroo-Sankar gets an idea in her head, she just dives into it. And she is hoping that tourists and locals alike will get a chance to "dive into" her new puzzle book The Tourist Guide: Trinidad and Tobago Word Search.
Biroo-Sankar chatted about the book with Newsday during an interview last week.
As a child growing up in Tacarigua, she had an early love for puzzles and word searches, a passion her mother also shared. This love was fuelled by her father. who bought activity books for her and her siblings to "learn something." She recalled competing with her sister to find all the words in a word search first.
Her affinity for word searches continued into adulthood and inspired her to create her own book. She decided to use TT as a topic because of a lack of similar books in local bookstores.
After having the idea bouncing around in her head for "quite some time," she started actively working on it in 2021, during the covid19 pandemic.
"I had a vision in my head and I would work on it manually."
The idea moved further when she learned that a previous co-worker had published a book. She asked where it had been published and was directed to Empress Royále Publishing in New York. She met with a representative of the company in late 2021 and pitched her idea.
"It is a word search, but it would be done differently. We would give people information related to the puzzles."
[caption id="attachment_1033811" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The Tourist Guide: Trinidad and Tobago Word Search is currently available for purchase through Amazon. - Photo by Ayanna Kinsale[/caption]
Empress Royále Publishing agreed to publish the book and helped Biroo-Sankar compile the puzzles. Work on the book stalled, however, when she contracted covid19 at the beginning of 2022. She also learned that she was pregnant.
"I needed to get up and going (with the book) before the baby comes."
Working as a purchasing officer for a bottling company during the day, she pushed to do research for the book in the night, between 10 pm and 1 am. She said this was not a problem, as she was a "night person" who is very energetic during this period, and only needs four hours of sleep.
She explained that for each puzzle she would gather as much information as possible, put it together and then forward it to the publisher, who would then pull out key points related to TT. After reviewing a couple of drafts from the publisher she added three more puzzles to better cover the topics of TT.
The book covers quite a vast range of topics, including food, street food, south Trinidad, colloquialisms, the history of petroleum, the east coast, the Queen's Park Savannah, the Magnificent Seven, birds, local names for insects, endangered species, beaches, "down the islands," waterfalls, diving sites, festivities, folklore characters, parang, culture, government, current and former leaders, prominent athletes and Olympic medallists, horse racing, a little on Caricom, a lot on Tobago, and Carn
