I chose Sid so that readers realise that it’s probably based on Sidhartha’s experiences with mental health. If I am doing this, it should be all right for you too,” reveals Sidhartha Mallya during a video interview from the United Kingdom, to discuss his first children’s book, Sad Glad (Puffin-Penguin Random House).

One morning, young Sid doesn’t know why he is feeling different. He wants to lie in bed. He is confused and sad. “Why cannot we be happy at all times?” he asks Duke, his talking pet dog, who plays therapist to the five-year-old by telling him that it’s okay to feel different things at different times. It’s a simple story with a happy ending. But the real message lies in between the lines. “After I wrote my first book, If I Am Honest in 2021, I wanted to continue the conversation around mental wellness. I am always going to be a kid at heart; I enjoy engaging with them [children]. I took to writing poems on mental health on Instagram. Sad Glad started as a poem but at some point, I realised it could become a picture book. I wrapped it up in under a day,” shares Mallya, adding that Martin Scorsese’s famous quote: ‘The most personal is always the most creative’ washis inspiration. “I thought about what I would have benefited the most from if I was young Sid; I realised that it was learning more about my emotions.”