HANUMAN'S RAMAYAN
(or since we have a copy in Marathi, Hanumanache Ramayan)
Retold by Devdutt Pattnaik.
Pictures by Nancy Raj.
Translated into Marathi by Suniti Jain.
Ages: 8+
I told A that for this post she has to help me. She took it and sat a long time just looking through it. She was fascinated by the illustrations. "Aai, (mother in Marathi) this looks like the painting in our hall." She was right. The drawings were in Maithil/Madhubani style, a painting in which hung on our wall. So we had potential here.
A-speak on the drawings: "The pictures look very easy to draw. They are not drawn perfectly, like if there is an oval it is not a perfect oval but just looks like an oval. But they look very interesting and colourful, and somehow they look like 3-dimentional pictures. Like the Raavan's heads look just as if they are slightly one behind another. It looks as if some child has drawn all the lines inside the pictures."
She sat some more looking at the illustrations. I had read the text the day before, so I could point out the characters to her. "Aai, I think the people in the drawings have very interesting expressions. Narad looks like he is saying 'So what?' The rivers look very happy and Vayu looks very powerful. And the fire-god looks as if he is wondering what is happening."
She sat down cross-legged, pencil in hand. Why a pencil, you may ask. That's what she does when faced with unfamiliar text. She approached the book in the way she tackles her Hindi/Kannada lessons. The earlier Tulika book that she had read, POND, was a breeze compared to this one. As she painstakingly read through it, she underlined the words she found difficult. The language was simple enough, and written in a way Marathi is spoken. Not stilted like in some other children's books I have encountered. But some words were very new to her. Marathi also has very hard consonants, and at places where the word involved a few 'jodaksharas' or conjoined consonants, she found it difficult to get her tongue around them. Or rather she found it difficult to pronounce from what she was reading. When I pronounced the word for her, she could repeat it easily enough. After a while, she started reading with more ease, although it did take her a good part of an hour to finish the book. Interspersed with finding the meanings of the 'difficult words' and discussing some sentences which she did not easily understand.
Some of these words she had already encountered in Hindi at school, so those were easy. At some places, like when we read "parjanyadev Indra," I could make use of some of the mythological stories she already knows-in this case the story of "govardhangiridhari Krishna" who helped the people of Gokul against the wrath of the god of rain Indra- to understand the reference.
As we read, even she was startled along with Valmiki when Hanuman ate up the leaves on which he had written his Ramayan. When we came to the last page, and she read it, I reminded her that I had once told her that the Ramayan is a mythological story supposedly written by Valmiki, a rishi, and that it probably is the memory of a similar story which might have actually happened in history. The story was in an oral form earlier, which was written down at some point of history. And when a story is told orally over many generations, it may be added to by the different storytellers, and might change from the original version, just like what happens in a game of chinese whispers. And different people might tell the same story in different ways, just like her father and I might tell the same bedtime story in different words. And many versions may be lost to us, just as Hanuman's version was lost when he ate up those leaves.
We enjoyed reading this book together. Thank you, Tulika books, for sending me a Marathi copy. As I have said in my post about my first language, some words defy translation, and I was glad to be able to read them to her in my mother-tongue.
A-speak on the drawings: "The pictures look very easy to draw. They are not drawn perfectly, like if there is an oval it is not a perfect oval but just looks like an oval. But they look very interesting and colourful, and somehow they look like 3-dimentional pictures. Like the Raavan's heads look just as if they are slightly one behind another. It looks as if some child has drawn all the lines inside the pictures."
She sat some more looking at the illustrations. I had read the text the day before, so I could point out the characters to her. "Aai, I think the people in the drawings have very interesting expressions. Narad looks like he is saying 'So what?' The rivers look very happy and Vayu looks very powerful. And the fire-god looks as if he is wondering what is happening." On another page she said, "That river looks as if it is a conveyor belt. Just like at the airport? And the bird is picking up a fish from the conveyor belt. And how funny- both the sun and the moon are there. No, no. It is night here and day there. But how can it be like that on the same page?" So I explained to her that there were footprints to be seen there, so the picture meant that Valmiki walked on his way all through the night and then through the day. Probably for many days before he reached the place where the banana trees were to be seen.
On another page she liked the detailing where the "bird is looking surprised to see a drop of water fall from Valmiki's eyes. But why is he crying, Aai?" So I asked her to read the story.
She sat down cross-legged, pencil in hand. Why a pencil, you may ask. That's what she does when faced with unfamiliar text. She approached the book in the way she tackles her Hindi/Kannada lessons. The earlier Tulika book that she had read, POND, was a breeze compared to this one. As she painstakingly read through it, she underlined the words she found difficult. The language was simple enough, and written in a way Marathi is spoken. Not stilted like in some other children's books I have encountered. But some words were very new to her. Marathi also has very hard consonants, and at places where the word involved a few 'jodaksharas' or conjoined consonants, she found it difficult to get her tongue around them. Or rather she found it difficult to pronounce from what she was reading. When I pronounced the word for her, she could repeat it easily enough. After a while, she started reading with more ease, although it did take her a good part of an hour to finish the book. Interspersed with finding the meanings of the 'difficult words' and discussing some sentences which she did not easily understand.
Some of these words she had already encountered in Hindi at school, so those were easy. At some places, like when we read "parjanyadev Indra," I could make use of some of the mythological stories she already knows-in this case the story of "govardhangiridhari Krishna" who helped the people of Gokul against the wrath of the god of rain Indra- to understand the reference.
As we read, even she was startled along with Valmiki when Hanuman ate up the leaves on which he had written his Ramayan. When we came to the last page, and she read it, I reminded her that I had once told her that the Ramayan is a mythological story supposedly written by Valmiki, a rishi, and that it probably is the memory of a similar story which might have actually happened in history. The story was in an oral form earlier, which was written down at some point of history. And when a story is told orally over many generations, it may be added to by the different storytellers, and might change from the original version, just like what happens in a game of chinese whispers. And different people might tell the same story in different ways, just like her father and I might tell the same bedtime story in different words. And many versions may be lost to us, just as Hanuman's version was lost when he ate up those leaves.
We enjoyed reading this book together. Thank you, Tulika books, for sending me a Marathi copy. As I have said in my post about my first language, some words defy translation, and I was glad to be able to read them to her in my mother-tongue.
6 comments:
Sandhya, it was such a pleasure reading this post. From now on, I order you to include A's reactions to any book you review. Thank you:)
Thanks, Tulika. We loved writing it. Will keep it in mind.
What an inspiring response !
Thank you very much A.
and thanks very much for posting it Sandya!
Nancy Raj
@Nancy: the pictures were really expressive. I agree with A.:)
its so good to see a blog on Hanman ji.. :)
Hey Sandhya, I have this book in English. I found this book quite fascinating. Because the brat is only 6 years, he read it like any other story. He found Hanuman eating up the banana leaves (story) really funny :)
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