Teenager Chinmay Patgaonkar launches his second book Ashoka’s Secret with NuVoice Press

New Delhi: As a child, he was sure that writing is where his passion and strengths intersected. Refusing to take his eyes off the goal, Chinmay Patgaonkar set about mastering the craft and taking incremental steps toward publication. Persistence certainly got him there in the end, and his talent honed along the way will be his path to lasting success.

A student of Indus International School Pune, Chinmay has just released his second book, Ashoka’s Secret. His first novel, published two years ago is titled The Last 21 Hours: A Bullet That Shook The White House.

Ashoka’s Secret is Chinmay Patgaonkar’s second venture into fiction. The story goes thus: After the devastating horrors of the Kalinga war, Ashoka converted to Buddhism and later formed a secret society called The Nine Unknown. The purpose of this secret society was to preserve and update the knowledge in them that could benefit humanity. If these manuscripts fell into the wrong hands, then that could lead to a threat towards humanity and society. More than two and a half millennia later, another secret society formed by power hungry, greedy people is on the hunt to kill all members of the Nine Unknown and steal the nine manuscripts to take control of the entire world. In the midst of a war between two secret societies is a PhD student named Ananya who finds herself being chased by danger for protecting the secret which Ashoka feared would fall into the wrong hands. Can Ashoka’s secret stay lost in history?

The young author’s book was launched by Dr Anand Deshpande, the Founder, Chairman & Managing Director of Persistent Systems and the founding member of iSPIRIT, India’s first product think tank started with a vision of creating a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in India as well as i4C – Inter Institutional Inclusive Innovation Center; Sandeep Chhabra, the Principal of Indus International School Pune and a revered educationist for three and a half decades; Dr Uma Ganesh, an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, New Delhi and PhD from IIT Bombay. Her entrepreneurial venture Global Talent Track is a leader in Skills in Asia, GTT and its digital platform Skills Alpha have so far impacted 1.2 million youth in the country. Uma has also co- Founded 5F World, is an investor and Board member in Emoha Health and has co-authored two books on Knowledge Management and Digital Success; and Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Founder and Chairman of 5F World and Global Talent Track, Chairman of Honeywell Automation India Ltd. and the Lighthouse Communities Foundation.

The event was moderated by Naghma PK of Foster Reads.

All in all, the launch of Ashoka’s Secret was a well-deserved fare not just for this young mind with many more stories to share, but also for the veterans who imparted their knowledge and were an integral part of the event.

Published by NuVoice Press and distributed pan India by Simon & Schuster, and launched by Foster Reads, Chinmay Patgaonkar's Ashoka’s Secret is now available in pan India bookstores and on Amazon