Authors and artists from across the world have contributed to the first comprehensive fundraiser anthology from the COVID-19 period.
Amongst the final 75 authors and 75 artists there are people from Indian and Asian backgrounds who have taken the lead to use words and art to raise money and show their support for the NHS and other frontline services during the COVID-19 crisis.
House of Lords member Lord Ranger said that "the book puts these difficult times into perspective" and does "enhance our understanding and expertise about this phenomenon.”
Together: An Anthology from the COVID-19 pandemic is a 444-page collection of heart-warming stories, personal experiences and poems, written by people for people. It is published by Dutch researcher Dr Pauldy Otermans and Indian social entrepreneur Dev Aditya. They said, “We are indebted to the support and thousands of contributions they received from the world over to make this book a reality.”
Almost 55% of the authors and artists of the book who come from 5 continents are from Asian backgrounds.
One of the prominent authors is Frank F. Islam, who has written Working Pivot Points: To Make America Work Again (2013) and entries on The Huffington Post. Frank was an Indian immigrant to the USA who became a self-made entrepreneur, investor, civic leader and philanthropist.
His entry in the book along with a few others was described as a “beautiful archive of our troubled times” by Dr Avishek Parui, the author of Postmodern Literatures. Bappi Lahiri, the Disco King of India, was another contributor to the book and is an Indian Hall of Fame Singer, music composer and director.
Anand Kumar, a mathematician and social educator on whom the 2019 Super 30 movie was made, also has his work featured in the book.
Among these contributors another special duo come up - Biman Mullick, aged 93, the oldest artist contributor to the book, along with his late wife Aparajita Mullick, who together contributed 3 amazing pieces of artwork to this moving and real anthology of human experiences. Sadly, Aparajita Mullick passed away a few weeks after submitting her artwork for the book and could not see it in print.
Biman Mullick is a globally renowned graphic artist who was born in undivided Bengal in the late 1920s where he met Mahatma Gandhi, and left for London soon after partition.
This is also not the first socially driven project of Dr Pauldy Otermans and Dev Aditya, they have previously run inclusivity campaigns across the UK. These have won them a national award for campaigning for South Asian students and they have raised over 185,000 to bring a green transport system to the people of Uxbridge - their hometown. Prof Polly Roy, Chair of Virology at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and one of the foremost BME scientists in the country has said “No one expected this virus but no one could have imagined the response. What a book!".
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