Blog tour day 1: Bijoy and the Big River

pic courtesy tulika books

Bijoy and the Big River
Written by Meera Sriram and Praba Ram
Published by Tulika Books
Ages 10+

The Brahmaputra. Called Burha Luit by the Assamese. The lives of the locals are closely tied to the river. Both the good and the bad times - the Big River affects it all.

This is the story of Bijoy, a young boy from a farming community that produces the famed Eri Silk, or ahimsa silk - the silkworms aren't killed in the production unlike those that breed on mulberry - as it is also known. A quiet, verdant, idyllic place, on a farm where Bijoy stays with Ma and Deuta (father in Assamese). It is a good life, even if the river sometimes destroys everything in its path during floods.

On an average day, Bijoy helps his father to look after the silkworms feeding on the castor leaves. To gather the silk after the eri moths have flown away out of the open ended cocoon. And to transport the silk to the village of Sualkuchi by canoe with Deuta after his mother has spun and reeled out the threads. It is hard work, but there is adventure as well, as when the xihu (pronounced hihu, the now endangered Gangetic Dolphin, also found in the Brahmaputra) are sighted along the way on the river, in large groups sometimes. Or when he sees the big city sights of tourist boats at Guwahati, enroute to Saulkuchi.

After a similar book with Tulika, Dinaben and the Lions of Gir, where the the authors introduce us to the Maldhari commmunity of Gujarat, Meera Sriram and Praba Ram have come up with another winner. This time they write about a farming family from Assam, in the far north-east of India. Praba, the founder of our beloved Saffrontree, and Meera, who was a contributor until recently, are both champions of a good cause - sustainable living, closer to nature. This book is exactly what would be expected as their brain-child:  This is what they have to say about how the germ of an idea became this book.

Bijoy's story has illustrations by Koel Basu, bare sketches that are evocative of the villages of Assam, as well as photographs by various contributors. Along with the tidbits as marginalia, we learn a lot about life as a silk farmer in this far North-Eastern state. This book is a welcome addition by Tulika books, as this part of our country is vastly under-represented in children's literature.

An extra tidbit:  Burha=ancient, Luit=blood. The legend goes that Brahma had a son by the wife of a sage, who was then abandoned at a place between the hills. The child took the form of water, which became the Brahmakund. Parashuram, having killed his own mother after being ordered to by his father, had the bloodstained axe stuck to his hand. As penance, he was told to release the waters for the people living in the valleys and plains. He axed down the mountains holding the waters, which started flowing as the river Brahmaputra - literally, Brahma's son - that brought sustenance to the locals. This released the axe as well as washed the blood off it. Brahmaputra is thus the only river in India that is masculine; all others are feminine.

**************************************

This will be a five-day-long blog tour - with five different perspectives. Here are the dates and places where our readers can find Bijoy and the Big River.

March 18th - Saffron Tree.. Posted by me. Yay, the first review of this book!
March 19th - Literary Sojourn. Vibha Sharma.
March 20th - The not-so artful dodger. Artnavy.
March 21st - Mamma of Twins. Itchingtowrite.
March 22nd - The Mad Momma. Lavanya D / Prateek.

Do visit!

Cross-posted at Saffrontree.

Book Review: It's All The Same!

You read a book. Then you go and watch the movie made on the book. You find small and big places where the movie has deviated from the original.

It may be as large a deviation as having inserted a whole new subplot or scene. Think the scene in HP and The Half-Blood Prince where the Death Eaters come en masse and create havoc at the Burrow, the Weaselys' home or the change in the reason why the Death Eaters realise who the real Harry is in the opening sequence of Deathly Hallows 1. (Yes, that is a large deviation in my eyes- I can be a purist that way!)

It can be a small deviation like having a trim-slim protagonist in the movie version of Louis Sachar's Holes versus the plump, podgy one in the book - a wonderfully made movie - one movie which certainly improved on the book - a difficult feat indeed!

The point is, that it a reader's/ viewer's understanding and memory of the story depends on the version they have imbibed, and thus starts the metamorphosis of the original story - happens with the writer, too, doesn't it, with each subsequent draft?

It is these versions that we are celebrating - Tulika Books had recently held a Celebrating Our Myths blogathon, in which I was declared one of the winners. My prize - this book.

Folktales and mythology. There are as many versions as the cultures that tell a particular story. Every storyteller worth their salt adds embellishments to it- some of which get incorporated in further generations. A sort of branching out in oral tradition. So the same story at the root may spawn many culturally different variations.

pic courtesy matsyacrafts

Here is a book that focuses on this very aspect of storytelling, with the help of the kaavad. I have seen one of these amazing contraptions at Artnavy's home. It is a fold-able picture book of sorts, that can be used to tell the story. The storytellers, called the Kaavadiya Bhaats, unravel the story from the seemingly intricately folded kaavad. This is a storytelling tradition that is still alive in the villages of Rajasthan.

pic courtesy tulikabooks

It's All The Same!
Written by Nina Sabnani
Illustrated by Satyanarayan Suthaar
Published by Tulika books
Ages 5+

Pappuram and Kojaram are both Kaavadiya Bhaats who go from place to place telling stories with the help of their colourful kaavads. Both tell the story of why Ganesha is worshipped before any other gods or goddesses. Both the stories take completely different paths. Both stories begin with Shiva and Parvati, Ganesha's parents. Where one version speaks their two sons, the other has a disgruntled Rama being prevented from reaching his own wedding.

What happens next? How do such completely different trajectories reach the same conclusion? Read it in our book, It's All The Same- for, at the end, it all is.

The illustrations by Satyanarayan Suthaar, a kaavadiya himself, are in rich detail, full colour, in the tradition of the kaavads, as is obvious from the two pictures here. Check out this video of the making of this book - watch the two kaavadiyas in action.


    

Abhijnaanashakuntalam: Truth & Lies

Mythological stories and folktales that have been around since ancient times are constantly evolving. They are a part of our oral storytelling tradition, and every storyteller tells it differently, infusing it with the cultural milieu, social and religious practices and his/her own world-view. This means that the same stories necessarily change over times and geographies, even if infinitesimally every time. This, for eg., accounts for vast differences between the Ramayana of Valmiki, the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas and the Indonesian version which has been derived from the Kamba Ramayanam of South India taken there by people who migrated there in the 8th century AD from Srilanka.

A notable example of different tellings of a mythological story is that of Shakuntala. Any self-respecting book reader will swear by the story immortalised by Kalidasa in his Abhijnaanashakuntalam. Shakuntala’s existence is forgotten by Dushyant on account of a curse by Durvasa rishi as she had been daydreaming about her husband when she should have been hastening to attend to Durvasa who is a guest. When she pleads with the seer to take back his curse, he tells her that if she can produce a token given by her husband in front of him, he would remember her. Then follows the whole story of the loss of the ring (careless woman!) and the serendipitous producing of it by the fisherfolk in the court after Dushyant has denied recognising Shakuntala as his wife in public.

I, too, believed in this version of the Shakuntalam till quite recently. The genius of Kalidasa and the beauty of his rendering ensured that the world believed it to be the real version. Far from it. It was merely the more popular version, that even little children learn (unfortunately!), thanks mainly to ACKs.

pic courtesy flipkart

It was quite recently, that I came across Women of the Mahabharata: The Question of Truth. Its author, Chaturvedi Badrinath, is a scholar on the Mahabharata who has won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010 for his books on the epic.

In his book, he speaks about the various women characters in the epic, known and relatively unknown. The chapter on Shakuntala made me sit up and take notice of the fact that Kalidasa had redefined the term ‘poetic licence’ drastically. Searching more for the original version, I found it again in Ashok Banker’s The Forest of Stories and a few online versions of the truth like this one.

In the original, there is no Durvasa-Ring episode. When Dushyanta disowns Shakuntala publicly, she berates him, and teaches him a few essential things about the Truth and Dharma. In the process, she comes across as intelligent, dignified and resourceful even under the grief of her husband’s denial of their marriage. Dushyant comes across as weak-willed coward, who was more worried about his image if he admitted to an impulsive marriage in a faraway hermitage. Of course, as it is mythology, he ‘accepts’ her after a convenient akashvani proclaims Shakuntala to be telling the truth!  

Kalidasa’s Abhijnaanashakuntalam is a beautifully written love story. However, he had adapted the original tale of Shakuntala, infusing it with the beliefs and social mores of the times: the 4th century AD. The status of women was at a low as a direct result of the Manusmriti written a few centuries earlier. And of course, the hero of a romantic tale could do no wrong. How is Dushyanta to be blamed for his behaviour if he was a victim to a curse? In this, Kalidasa's genius has done women a disservice, as following generations have till today believed in his version rather than the original. Unfortunately, this is something that will shadow many such originals, as Sanskrit no longer remains a living language, and there will be fewer people who can study our original works.

This is my entry for Tulika's "Celebrating Our Myths" blogfest. 

Authored by a friend!

pic courtesy tulikabooks

Have You Seen This?
Text by Arthi Anand Navaneeth
Illustrated by Roomani Kulkarni
Published by Tulika books (bilinguals)
Ages 3+

I came home with A from her school bus-stop, and a parcel was waiting for me. I had a fair idea as to its contents, as I had been expecting my review copy from Tulika. The kid pounced on it when I told her what it was, and tore open the wrapping. There she stood, with her bag and shoes still on, giggling as she read through it!

Arthi Anand Navaneeth, Saffrontree’s own Artnavy, has brought us the wacky, the whimsical, the quirky, even the outlandish in this completely giggle-worthy book. A book bang-on in the premise of fiction, even fantasy- suspending disbelief, and even believing the unbelievable!

“A chair that jumps? 
A tree that flies? 
A crow that cooks?” 

A friend who came over read it to her 2 ½ year old in front of me, and his reaction was equally giggle-worthy. The child was transfixed, with his mouth open, and saying “Yes!”, “No!” : acting out some stuff and laughing out really loud at places. It was interesting to note what he said “Yes” to. Those were the ones he has seen as the anthropomorphised characters doing similar wacky things in other stories or on the TV. So these were clearly things that children around his age seemed to think were possible- spot on for the target age group of the book.

Illustrations by Roomani Kulkarni are a huge part of the book’s appeal. I did a search for this artist, who I had not heard of before, and I was amazed by some of her other work. In the book, the eye looks at a picture on a new page first, travelling next to the words which explains it all, just a single sentence on each page. The pair of children romping around the narrative reminded us for some reason of ET, the extra-terrestrial!

The book is the newest in the Tulika books' series of bilingual books, and ours was a Marathi-English combo, thoughtfully sent by Tulika and Arthi, as we speak Marathi at home. A had as much fun tripping over reading the Devnagari script that she has learnt in Hindi at school, and then smoothing out the prounciation into the familiar Marathi. Our personal favourite? The book that reads!:)

We're proud of you, Artnavy!

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

Malavika Shetty- the writer of The Sweetest Mango

She is a linguist with impressive credentials. The bio at the place she currently works reads:

Malavika Shetty is currently a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Tech, where she uses her background in linguistics to teach courses in multimodal communication. Her courses encourage students to think critically about the role of language in the media and in their daily lives.
Malavika received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin. Her areas of interest are linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and narrative. Her dissertation, Television and the Construction of Tulu Identity in South India, looks at how television can be used by a community as an effective medium for language revitalization and maintenance.

Let me add here, that her particular field of work is one which has often fascinated me- linguistic anthropology- the development and propogation of language. There are a few books at hand on the subject that I would like to share here sometimes. Not really technical books, but easy reads for lay persons like you and me

She is also the author of a lovely children's book, The Sweetest Mango, published by Tulika books. A mouth-watering addition to their wonderful books for children.

As one of the winners of their mango blogathon, Tulika books sent me a copy of the book, and asked me if I would like to interview the author. Would I like to? Of course, YES! They introduced us to each other by mail. Malavika was very approachable and sweet. Even waiting a week or so that it took me to actually get down to sending her a list of questions, which she promptly replied to. Thanks, Malavika.

So here she is, Malavika Shetty, in her own words.

How did you conceive of the story idea?
I have always wanted to write a story about friendship and the close bonds formed during childhood. Also, I love mangoes, so I thought about writing a story about friendship, but also a story that was set during the mango season.

Tell us a bit about your childhood and background.
I grew up in the suburb of Bandra in Bombay in an idyllic neighbourhood where I played all day with lots of children. We went cycling, plucked and ate mulberries from bushes, played cricket and hide and seek…. My childhood was a never-ending summer. I am still in touch with the friends I grew up with and, when we meet, we speak about how much fun we had growing up together.
My family is from a village near Udipi (the village I describe in the book is my village), and almost every summer, my family and I make the trip to the village where there are lots of mango and coconut trees. My summer holidays, growing up, were spent doing exactly what Suma and Jyothi do in the book (except the walking to school bit!). I plucked mangoes from the trees surrounding the house. I ate lots of mango curry.

Did you have an experience similar to that of Suma or Jyothi, as a child?
While the setting of the story is similar to my experience of childhood in my village near Udipi, I do not recollect a similar incident of saving a mango for myself and finally sharing it.

How did you approach Tulika books with your story, and how did the journey of making the book go?
I have always loved reading Tulika books and enjoy reading them with my children very much. I also make up my own stories and tell them to my children, so the thought of writing a children’s book was always in my mind.  I was in Chennai one summer, so I walked into the Tulika office and asked about how I could go about writing and submitting a story to them. I was, very kindly, given an email address to which I could submit a story.  I got back to Atlanta, wrote the story, and sent it to Tulika. I was thrilled when they actually accepted the story for publication.

Ajanta Guhathakurta, the illustrator, is an established name. As I said in my review, "A drool-worthy book, with warm, summery illustrations by Ajanta Guhathakurtha matching the yumminess of the text."  How did you collaborate with her on this book? Check out this interview of Ajanta Guhathakurta by R's Mom.
Ajanta read the story and came up with the fabulous illustrations all by herself.

Your bio says:  "Her areas of interest are linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and narrative."  Could you elaborate on that? How do you associate that with creative writing?
My research broadly looks at the relationship between language and culture. I look at how language is a crucial component that binds communities together and how it is an essential part of a community’s identity. My training and background is in linguistics, but I use tools from anthropology to look how language is used by a community.
My dissertation looked at how a Tulu-language television station in Karnataka could change the way Tulu is regarded. Having a call-in Tulu TV show gave community members an opportunity to voice their opinions and present different versions of narratives like folk tales and folk songs that have been part of the community’s oral culture for centuries.
Listening to folk tales and folk songs while I was doing my research has been an amazing experience. There are so many stories and wonderful descriptions contained in our oral cultures. These narratives are a source of inspiration for my own creative writing

Tell us some more about the 'mundappa mango' that the story mentions.
The Mundappa is a variety of mango found in the region of Karnataka that I describe in the story. It is one of biggest and fleshiest mango varieties, and, if eaten, when it is at its optimum moment of ripeness, is in my opinion, the sweetest mango in the world. The Mundappa has a distinct round shape and grows to be as large as a coconut. I used to see the Mundappa in trees far more often when I was growing up than I do now. It seems as though the Mundappa mango trees are giving way to other varieties, so laying ones hands on a perfect Mundappa is really a treat.

It is said that it is more difficult to write for children than for adults. What do you say to that as seen from the perspective of your profession, and as a children's writer?
I don’t think it is a question of ‘difficulty’. For me, it is more of a question of what I want to work on at a given moment. Sometimes I find that I want to write something that adults would read. At other times, I want to write something that children might enjoy. While I enjoy my work as a linguistic anthropologist and like writing about aspects of my work for an academic audience, I have discovered that I also enjoy writing for children very much.

Great, that means that we shall be reading more by you. Are there more books in the pipeline?
Yes! I loved writing The Sweetest Mango, and working with the editors and staff at Tulika has been a wonderful experience. I will certainly write more children’s books.

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

A delicious prize!

So I've won! And the prize is delicious. It is The Sweetest Mango.

Yes, yes, I know it is currently the mango season and all that, but this one, though closely related to those mangoes, is a bit different. I recently participated in a blogathon held by Tulika books on mangoes and my post was declared one of the winning entries. My prize :  A copy of this book.

Pic courtesy tulikabooks.com

The Sweetest Mango
Written by Malavika Shetty
Illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta
Published by Tulika books
Ages 5+

Do you remember that when you were a child, you probably had a very close buddy (a friend or a sibling) who you hung out with, with whom you shared every little secret, and who was your partner-in-crime for all the mischief that you got into? With whom you shared absolutely everything?

But sometimes you had something really tasty. You hoarded it, hid it from everybody, even your closest buddy and ate it bit by bit, all by yourself? Didn't want to share it with ANYONE?

I would do that. My mother would give me some guL-shengdaNe (jaggery and peanuts - a really yummy combination that I loved. You split open the peanut, and stuffed some jaggery between the halves, and then popped it into your mouth. Yum!) and I would be loath to share it with anyone. I would keep it in a box in a secret place, and eat it surreptiously throughout the day, making it really last. I was reminded of that as I read this book.

Suma is a little girl who loves mangoes in any form. There was, of course, the delicious, juicy fruit, but there were also the pickles and curries made at home that she relished.

Now, Suma has a bosom buddy, Jyothi. The two girls were neighbours in a village near Udupi, a coastal town on the mango belt near the western coast of India. The village had many mango and coconut trees, and there were some around their houses. Summer meant a surfeit of mangoes, and of course, they had to be got by climbing the trees, and eaten freshly picked from the branches.

There was a particular mango tree, the mundappa mango, that grew behind Suma's house. It grew huge, round and sweet mangoes. One day, Suma spots a really big specimen, bigger than a coconut.

'But it was still raw, and it would be a few days before it ripened to sweetness. 
Suma couldn't wait to eat it. "I won't tell Jyothi," she thought. "I'll eat it all by myself."

So what happens next? How does she get through the few days of waiting? Does she get to eat it? All by herself? What about Jyothi?

A book about the joys of friendship, and the carefree innocence of childhood. A drool-worthy book, with warm, summery illustrations by Ajantha Guhathakurtha matching the yumminess of the text.

A read the book within ten minutes of its arrival at home, and was smiling as she finished it. I suppose she, too, was thinking of the way she is often loath to share some of the goodies she gets from her grandparents' place when we visit. And how we sometimes enjoy them better when shared!

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

****************************************************

A word about the mundappa mango. It is a variety that I have not heard of. I did a google-search for it, and came across this article from the Metro Plus section of the Mangalore edition. Quoting from it:
"The Mundappa has a distinctive taste and develops sweetness in its very early growing stage. Even when ripe, its colour will still be green, but a reddish tinge on the top indicates that the fruit is ready for consumption. If allowed to grow to its full size (some growers do) each Mundappa can weigh as much as 450-500 grams. Though they are a local variety, the fully-grown Mundappas arrive in the market only during mid-season."

Another article, this time a blog post from a farming blog, SundayFarmer, laments the gradual disappearance of local and wild varieties of the fruit due to a demand for the 'more marketable' varieties like the alphonso, totapuri, dasheri, etc. Quoting:
"‘Mundappa’ is another local variety that many people in Dakshina Kannada district would readily recall. Ayurveda specialist Dr K.S. Kamath, from Manchi village, says this variety originally came from the compound of a house on Dongarakery-New Chitra Theatre Road in Mangalore.
A red variant of this mango used to grow on three trees in the heart  Mangalore city until a few years ago. None of them can be found today as a posh shopping mall stands on that land. Ironically, the hypermarkets at that mall stock a range of hybrid mangoes, but the local red mundappa can no longer be had for love or money."

A mango locally grown and known in the western coastal mango belt around the Mangalore area, this, along with the many others which are just as or sometimes even more delicious than the commercially known variants, needs to be preserved and propogated for future generations.

A sad state of matters, indeed. Like the 'goti mango' that I remember from my childhood. A very small, very sweet variety that is not to be seen anywhere these days.

.

Mango memories

Tulika books is holding a summer blogathon for mango lovers. Here is my entry.

Summer vacations meant a lot of things to me as a child, but most of all, it meant Mangoes with a capital M.

My native place was in a small, picturesque village, in central Maharashtra. Every year, cousins from wherever they were would zero in for a month or more of mango filled decadence. Our family owned a lot of land in the village, and there were jowar and bajra fields, peanut fields and mango orchards. Of course, for us children, it was the latter that mattered the most.

The fun began soon after reaching the village by ST as the State Transport buses were called. It was a very small place, too small to have a proper bus stand, but there was a clump of banyan trees on the tarred road that passed by the village. There, in the shade of that clump, was a 'paar,' a makeshift 'bus stand', if you could call it that. Transport to the homestead was on foot, by cycles, or on bullock carts. It was usually the bullock cart for us, as we would have luggage with us, too. Luggage, children and grown-ups (in that order) would be piled onto the carts, the adults sometimes preferring to walk along with the cart, happy to stretch their legs after the cramped journey in crowded buses.

Imagine. No motorised traffic. No pollution. A drive through mango orchards loaded with fruit, and past fields. An era much before mobile phones. The only sounds were the tinkle of bells on the bullocks, the clip-clopping of hoofs, the clickety-clack of wooden wheels. The chatter of people, the cry of the occasional baby, the hailing by someone known, working in the fields. The sound of birds, especially the koel, calling out incessantly from the trees, and the crows cawing at intervals. The gurgle of a brook running through the fields. The orchards were wonderful places for picncs that we children often went for. Cool in the shade of the sprawling trees, even at the height of summer. More than eating, we would be interested in throwing stones at the fruit to get it off the trees.

Before we knew it, we would be at the homestead. I keep calling it a homestead because it was a massive, sprawling structure that had seen many generations of my family, who were landowners in the village. There was a huge courtyard in the centre, around which the rest of the house was structured. The walls were thick, made of worn stone, with massive recesses set in, to be used as cupboards, or (as I then thought) cool niches just for us children to curl up in, on a hot day, preferably with something to much, or a pillow and a book.

Kesar mangoes
pic courtesy google images

Here, there were whole rooms that would be piled high with mangoes, sorted out by those that had fallen off the trees and those that had been plucked off them. Our orchards did not grow that king of mangoes, the alphonso, but something just as sweet- the kesar mango. This is a slightly elongated specimen, that never turns that delectable shade of reddish golden so prized in markets, but stays greenish yellow even when ripe. The taste for me, though, is unmatched as remembered from my childhood.

I don't remember ever having this fruit cut, in a plate/ bowl, in the usual civilised way. No. We would simply choose what we wanted from the pile, wash them summarily under the eagle eye of some grown-up, then settle down to devour. The fruit was first squeezed on all sides to make it squishy, then the top was taken off, and we would proceed to suck the pulp out. Mmmmm...heaven! The mangoes had a very small seed, and plenty of pulp, so some of our meals would consist only of a handful of mangoes, and then some- on the go. I remember my brother once swallowed a seed by mistake, and to this day we rib him about the mango tree that never grew out of him!

Of course with the surfeit of fruit, quite a lot was sorted out and sold in the surrounding towns. Most of the rest was preserved in rural methods, and the remaining was made short work of by eating. There were special meals cooked incorporating the mango- aamras-puri being my favourite. To make aamras for the entire clan, whoever could would sit around with huge brass vessels and sqeeze out the pulp. If the pulp had to be extracted to preserve it, women from the village would be called in for the day- sometimes days. They would, of course, be paid in kind for their work. No, I am not speaking of very long ago- this was about three decades ago, and a lot of things worked this way in rural areas then.

The pulp thus gathered in great brass vessels would be cooked to thicken it. Sugar would be added as a preservative and what we finally got was a thick mass that solidified on cooling. A lot of it would be spread out in brass platters or on banana leaves to dry in the shade. We call this 'aamba-poli'. The rest would be shaped into rough balls and cooled for a few hours in the shade and stored for future use. We called this 'aambyacha saatha.'

Freshly mixed pickle

Raw mango- a lot of it was processed into a variety of home made pickles to be used over the year. There was an interesting pickle made of the smaller raw mangoes- they were simply mixed with a large amount of the rough sea salt, not the table variety. This lasted much longer than the pickles in which oil had already been poured. So after the other pickles were over, this one was opened, the mangoes cut up and used as a mouth-watering addition to the rough rural diet of bhaji-bhakri (vegetables with jowar/bajra roti) and crushed green chillies.

Some of the raw mango that had sweetened a bit was made into a refreshing drink called 'aam-panha', which could be made fresh, or in a preserved form that surprisingly lasted for weeks inspite of no refrigeration. Let me share a modern version of this drink with you. One that is made every year at my home.

Take raw mangoes. Remove peel. Cut the flesh away from the seed. Cook in a microwave till tender in a vegetable steamer without immersing the pieces in water. Puree. Measure the puree. For every volume of puree, add 3.5 measures of sugar. Add some salt to taste. Blend till evenly mixed. Add elaichi powder / jeera powder / kesar for flavour. Store in glass jars. This can stay in the refrigerator for upto a year.

While serving, take a tablespoon for each glass, add water and ice, stir till mixed well. Enjoy!

Oh, for those unfettered times!

Of writers and dreams - a book review

Last year, we had been to Mussoorie during the Christmas vacation, and A had looked forward to meeting one of her favourite (OK, one of my favourite too) writers Ruskin Bond. She had made a booklet of a few of her own stories. We wanted to meet him and present him with this booklet, and get our favourite books ( The Blue Umbrella for A and A Flight of Pigeons for me) signed. Unfortunately, he was out of town, and was to return only after we left Mussoorie. So we requested Mr Arora, who owns a bookstore where Ruskin Bond regularly signed books for his readers, to hand over the booklet to him to sign, and gave him our address. We were extremely disappointed on not being able to meet him in person, but there was nothing we could do about that!

Imagine our delight when, after a few weeks, an envelope arrived at our home, containing the booklet, duly signed by Mr Bond, with a few encouraging words from him. Her book, (never mind that it was an unpublished, handwritten one) signed by Ruskin Bond!

So when I read about Tulika's 'Advaita The Writer', I had to pick it up for A.

Pic courtesy tulikabooks.com

Advaita The Writer
Written by Ken Spillman
Illustrated by Soumya Menon
Published by Tulika books
Age 10+

A 13 yr old, Advaita begins school at the prestigious Dunham Girls' School, a residential school in Dehradun, far away from her home and family in New Delhi. A shy person, she finds herself struggling to fit in. Her nearest room-mate is a gadget freak hooked to her ipod, who "could only listen to something if it came through earphones."

The school library is a haven, however. An avid reader, who dreams of becoming a writer one day, Advaita feasts on the books, especially those by her favourite writer, Ruskin Bond. She has no idea that he lives at a stone's throw, just half-an-hour away, at Mussoorie.

"Ruskin Bond was a name as large in her consciousness as Gandhiji, Lutyens and Enid Blyton, and she had assumed that all such names belonged to the dead."

Well, no. He was a living legend, and moreover, someone who she could easily get to meet. So Mrs Kendall, her teacher, and Advaita plan a visit to Cambridge Book Depot, owned by Mr Arora, where Ruskin Bond sat every Saturday afternoon to sign books for his readers.

Does Advaita meet Ruskin Bond? How does she become 'Advaita the writer'?

We get a peek into Advaita's delightful, if a bit sarcastic sense of humour through her letters, in which we see her school life through her eyes. "Apparently, most of the girls here have adapted to survival without breathing - it has something to do with the number of years they spend in cold rarified air. This makes them thoroughly cold, inside and out...You will be pleased to know that I have climbed steadily up the evolutionary scale and that I am striving to reduce my dependence on air."!!

Black-and-white illustrations by Soumya Menon, who has illustrated many books by Tulika, are a treat - they stress on the fact that Advaita the writer is primarily a reader - she is never seen without a book in her hand, lost to the world, busy reading, and sometimes writing!

Ken Spillman has added an afterword in which he tells us about his inspiration for this book, a chance discussion with the awardwinning writer, Advaita Kala. He also introduces us to the delightful Ruskin Bond, a resource for those who have not encountered his work yet, who can see for themselves exactly what the pull is for Advaita and many others. There is a handy list of books for children by Mr Bond from which one may choose.

A loved this book- a fast read- and was smiling as she realised how like Advaita she is...the same avid reading of books, the same shyness with new people and places, the same urge to write, the same incomprehension of gadget-crazy friends! And the same experience, albeit with a difference, about meeting Ruskin Bond!

I picked this book up at the Bangalore book fair this year, the last copy that the stall had. A was doubly delighted, because Ken Spillman had visited her school just a few days previously, had had an open discussion about his books with all the students, and had promised to reply to any mails that the children wrote to him.

I suppose my little reader-writer is thinking seriously about doing just that!

Tulika books - Fifteen, and going strong!

Pic courtesy tulikabooks

I first encountered Tulika books four years ago when A was all of 6 yrs old, and had Hindi and Kannada as 2nd and 3rd languages at school.

I am quite good at Hindi, but it was a little difficult finding good Hindi books where I lived. I was a novice at Kannada, I could barely speak the language, enough to communicate with my househelp, the friendly neighbourhood green grocer and the various autowalas on whom I was dependent to get around the city, not being able to drive. And no, I could not read or write the language. So I had no idea where to begin to find good kannada books suitable for her. The best persons to ask were obviously her language teachers. Both of them refered me to Tulika books.

At that time, I couldn't find much in bookstores. Then I discovered a lady who supplied the books on direct orders. I obtained her catalogue, went through it, and ordered a whole bagful of them.

It was a revelation. Lovely paper, beautiful layouts, just enough text in a large font to tell the story, and plenty of wonderful illustrations to read it from. I got hold of a few basic bilingual books like Line and Circle,  and a few picture books in both Kannada and Hindi like Sameer's House, My Mother's Sari, Dancing on the Walls, Dancing Bees, Pavo and Cavo; Wordbird books like The Why-why Girl, Ekki Dokki, and Eecha Poocha; books from the Under the Banyan series like All Free, Mazzoo Mazzoo and Sweet and Salty.

The books soon became an addiction. I read all the Hindi books aloud to A, again and again, at different stages of her language ability, so that she could soon understand them, and read them herself. A also became my Kannada teacher, and we laboured together through the unfamiliar alphabet, she, having the advantage of all young kids learning a new language, a sponge-like ability to absorb the language, I having the advantage of the familiarity of the sounds, if not of the correct grammar. We understood the Kannada, of course, in the context of a Hindi or English version, and soon made out what the unfamiliar words meant, helped along with dictionaries.

I recommended them to relatives in Mumbai, also thought I'll be able to pick up Marathi versions for A there, but for some reason, they are not so easily found at book stores there. Tulika books, you need to find out why.

It was soon after this, that I came across another wonderful publishing house for books in Indian languages- Pratham books, but this post is not about them. Matter for another post, certainly. This post is about Tulika books, and I'll stick to that. Pratham books deserve a mention in this context, nevertheless.

I soon found many other books by Tulika, loved them, brought them home. Gifted them at birthdays, as return gifts, sent them overseas to blogging friends as a gift, recommended them to countless friends, read them, blogged about them, and participated in blogathons organised by  Tulika books throughout the whole of last year. Won a few books from them too. The last book that I won from them, Aajoba by Taruja Parande, is yet to be reviewed by me. I shall proceed to correct this oversight in this post.



pic courtesy tulikabooks

 So a big THANK YOU, Tulika books. Congratulations on having completed 15 years of publishing this year on the 15th of February. A very happy birthday. We have loved having you around, and we hope to continue to read many more such gems by you. It was also wonderful meeting a few of the team members a few months ago.

And my favourite Tulika? Why, it is My Mother's Sari, written by Sandhya Rao and illustrated by Nina Sabnani, of course! A and I have had some wonderful moments with this book.

And now for our review.

Imagine that a child is given the activity of writing in a scrapbook all that (s)he knows about a favourite relative, with her special memories and feelings about that relative. Imagine that the child is provided with lots of colouring and writing material, and all the photographs that can be found about the person in question. And there is no rush to finish the project, time enough for the child to reflect and marshall all thoughts and feelings.

What would be the result? A collage-y book like Aajoba-my grandfather.

Pic courtesy tulikabooks.com

Written and illustrated by Taruja Parande.
Published by Tulika books.
Ages 5+

The book begins with who the writer's grandfather was. After enumerating all that he wasn't, she goes on to say that "He was just very special because he was mine."

And then she goes on to write about all the little, special, memorable things that they went on to do together. Putting a snack together, pottering about in the garden, giving the cat a bath, feeding pigeons and then listening to the sound of their wings as they suddenly flew overhead. The story of her Aajoba and Aaji when they got married, and the stories he would tell at bedtime, the same story over and over again.

The book has plenty of personal photographs, accounts of Aajoba's hobbies, pictures of cards written to the writer in his handwriting, pictures of the bags he made from re-cycled clothes and so much more that gives us a comprehensive picture of the person he was in Taruja's memories.

All the more wonderful from a child's point-of-view, as these are simple, everyday pleasures that mean more to a child than all the big things in the world, the little things that go into weaving a tapestry of memories. A tapestry that is so strong that it can often define who you become, and can be a virtual security blanket for one in the big, bad world.

It is a wonderful book, one that we have loved reading together at home. It has revived many memories of my grandparents, and has led to A seeing her own grandparents in a totally different light. In fact, this is one activity that we have planned for the upcoming vacations- A trip to both sets of her grandparents is on the cards, and we will have a lovely time going through old photographs, and maybe come up with a scrapbook of our own!

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

Entering this book for the Reading the World Challenge 2011 over at Papertigers for A under India, non-fiction.



  

Of rain and book-shine

It's been really cold weather for the past few days now, and seems as though winter has already begun. Having been born and brought up in Mumbai, it took me quite a while to get used to the cooler winters here. In fact, I am one of those who feel extra cold on any given day, and need at least a thin coverlet on warmer nights on which others cannot sleep without a fan.

The cold these few days is more as a result of the rains, thanks to Cyclone Jal, not true winter yet, methinks. Sweaters, jackets and quilts have nevertheless come out, and it is purely by sheer willpower, and the thought of having to get the child ready on time for the school bus, that I can get out of a warm bed before daybreak, shivering as I take a handful of really cold tap water to rinse my face so that I wake up completely.

Uncharacteristically for Bangalore, it has been raining at all odd times. It is not usual to have rain mid-morning. Unlike in Mumbai, where it keeps raining 24/7 for almost all days of the monsoon, July being the worst. What is interesting is that Mumbai keeps going inspite of it, and on days when the lifeline of the city, the local trains, stop in their tracks because of the water-logging, the die-hard Mumbaikars find alternative ways of going about their business. It isn't called maximum city for nothing.

Two incidents stand out in my memory.

One July day, many years ago, it rained so much in Mumbai that the local trains were not working. I had to submit my admission forms for my graduate course that day. On enquiring, I learnt that rain or no rain, it had to be done that day. So I took buses to the place, and had to walk the last half kilometer or so through thigh high water. Equiped with my certificates wrapped securely in plastic (Imagine the loss if they had got damaged by water? Try telling that to an 18-something person who has no concept of the apparent mission impossible!) and nothing more than an umbrella to protect myself from the incessant rain, I proceeded to do what I needed to do. Never mind that it took me the entire day to get there in the crazy water-logged traffic, finish with the formalities, and come back home.

Second was when a friend's parents had come to Mumbai from a town in interior Maharashtra for the first time since she had married and come to Mumbai. They had come just before the monsoon season had begun. When the rains started in earnest around the 2nd-3rd week of June, they were astonished that she had to go to work as usual, rain notwithstanding. That aunty later told me that she thought her daughter would have a holiday since it rained so much and so continuously that day. She soon realised, however, that the incessant rain was not just for a day or two like in her native town, but would continue unabated, increasing in ferocity over the next 2-3 months, and daily life had to go on!

When I came to Bangalore, it took me awhile to get used to its rains too, just like I had to get used to the cold. To my Mumbai-acclimatised mind, the rains here were erratic, comimg in summer as well as winter. Also, a sunny morning was no guarantee that it would not become overcast towards the afternoon, and rain in the evening. Initially, I hated the fact that I could not get out in the evenings. Also, I could not get my mind around the fact that people hardly ever carried umbrellas here-which you'll still find me carrying. (I always carry one in my purse. True Mumbaikar at heart. Ready even in case of unexpected rains.) And, I could not get any rainy footwear like in Mumbai- which I would get from there every year.

Now, after 15 years in Bangalore, I have partially switched loyalties, and find Mumbai too sultry sometimes. After all, this is air-conditioned city. I carry that umbrella, get my rainy footwear available at Bangalore shoe-shops since the past few years, and do all I have to do during the mornings. The cold- well, have made great additions to my wardrobe with some excellent jackets, pullovers and cardigans. And am fine with wearing warm-wear during the day, too if necessary.

On a different note- am looking forward to meeting the Tulika team tomorrow at Mother Earth, where they will be releasing their new set of books based on stories from the Panchatantra.. Although their programme is in the evening, which I will not be able to attend thanks to a function at the daughter's school, I shall try to attend a session that they have in the morning. The books, reviewed here at Saffrontree, look yummy!

And looking forward to drooling over the glut of books at the Bangalore Book Festival which starts today! Will try to go during the following week.

Also looking forward to meeting some old and new blogging friends next week.

Come rain or shine!

Edited to add on Nov 14th: Went to the release of the Tulika books yesterday. The team were very warm and welcoming, just as I had visualised them to be. Had a chance to attend an awesome performance by the inimitable Jeeva Raghunath as she told the story from one of the books which has been re-told by her.

An Ode to Swings

Last week, we were visiting some friends, who had a big wooden swing at their place. It was a wide, wooden one, hung by metal links, in their drawing room. As soon as I could, I went and sat on it. It felt great. Took me back many years.

We had a similar swing at my parents' home when I was a child. We stayed in a bungalow, and the swing was the only thing in the large verandah overlooking the garden outside. I remember spending many afternoons on it. There was a friend who stayed in building opposite our house, (I don't remember her name now. I was all of 5-7 yrs old then.) and she would come over every evening to play. We would spend hours on the swing, pushing as high as we could, thinking up many imaginary places that it could take us to. I think I had started reading a lot of Enid Blyton books around this time. So the swing would take us to all those delicious lands at the top of the Faraway tree, or where the Wishing chair went, or to all the places we learnt about in geography. The swing would then transform into the bus or train or plane taking us there.

As I grew a little older, I would actually sit there reading my books or studying in peace. This swing was taken with us to our later house when we shifted into the main city area, and was there for a long time even after I had married and left. It is now no longer there, and the balcony where it was has been converted into a study area for my nephew.

As if to make up for the lack of this swing, my parents fixed a single basket seat swing in the house. This is in the main hall, where one can sit and just read, or close one's eyes listening to music, or watch the TV, or just enjoy the company of guests. I happened to be staying at my parents' house during the few months before and after A's birth. I would spend hours sitting there, as the seat offered the perfect support for my back, and the slight breeze created by the swinging movement would fan me to keep me cool during the summer heat of mumbai + scheduled power cuts that had begun in Mumbai that year + the extra heat that one feels due to pregnancy.

Even after A was born, I would sit in the swing with her on my lap/ in my arms, humming to her, and the gentle movement would lull her to sleep. Many a day, when she would not be calmed by anything else, the swing would always do the trick. Something that the husband could magically do here at home without the swing, but with some soothing music playing as he walked with her in his arms. Even now, A loves sitting in that swing, and it is the first thing she does when we go there- climbs up into the swing and settles down.

Image Courtesy lone-star.net

At our native village, there was a very old stone house where we had swings made of rope tied to the horizontal wooden beams in the ceiling. These were made of double ropes with a thich sheet of sacking tucked in for a seat, with sometimes a pillow on it for extra comfort. These were found indoors as well as out of doors, tied on thick horizontal branches of very old mango/ banyan trees. I have a mental image of myself swinging on one of these swings, pushing higher and higher, with the sun shining down through the branches and leaves of the tree the swing was tied to, and, of all things, a calf tied to a post nearby. I do not now remember how old I was, or who I had with me, but I can safely say that I remember having a lot of fun.

Sometimes, when A plays on the swing in our complex, and goes higher and higher, with her hair in plaits streaming behind her, a smile of utter delight on her face, I am transported back to those carefree, innocent times. Oh, to be a child with not a care! I have sometimes sat on this swing myself, but didn't dare to swing very high, as these are not meant to take as much weight as mine.

Recently, I had reason to go to a farmhouse where A's friend AM had her birthday party. They have a swing seat there, and it felf great to go up in the air again. Since there were a lot of kids running around, and I was an 'aunty', I didn't hog it for long, but we had been there once before, and had swung on it to my heart's content.

There is a wrought iron swing seat in the clubhouse area of the complex I live in. It is a favourite place, where I sit almost every day whilst A plays with her friends in the evening. I sit there with my book, mostly oblivious to the hubbub around me as kids of all ages rush around on cycles, or just run around, mothers stand around catching up socially while looking out for their offspring or the older ladies sit around on the benches placed strategically. But that swing is 'my seat', as even the children around know. If any of them are sitting on it when I approach, book, spectacle case and phone in hand, they immediately move away to make place for me.

The swing is an old one, and recently there has been a proposal to remove it and replace it with a bench so that there is some more place for the older ladies, who do not seem to be comfortable with the sense of motion sickness it might be giving them. Somehow, I never suffered from motion sickness on a swing, and this last one where I may sit on a regular basis will also soon disappear. I have often felt the need for a swing in the house, but somehow it never materialised.

I am reminded of this lovely poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. From A Child's Garden Of Verses.

Image Courtesy Amazon

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown--

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

This post is my entry for Tulika Books' blogathon 5. It is a collage-y post on swings.

More of my grandmother's songs.

What else do I remember of my grandmother's songs? As a response to Tulika books' Blogathon 4 I wrote a quickie post with a few songs that came to my mind immediately. It triggered off an avalanche of many such memorable songs from my childhood, and I would love to share those too. Mindful Meanderer reminded me of this one in her comments. Loosely translated, it speaks of the gold and silver jewellery worn by the baby and ends by putting a 'kala-tikka' on the baby to ward off the 'evil eye.'
Adgula madgula
Sonyacha kadbola
Rupyacha vala
Sonya bala
Teet lav

Sometimes when I got annoyed with my grandmother and went and sat in the corner- a self imposed timeout of sorts- she would sing
Rusu bai rusu
Annoyed little girl
Kopryat basu
Sitting in a corner
Tikdun ala___ (insert name of someone I liked)
Someone__ has come here
Khudkan hasu!
Suddenly you laugh!

Girls played a lot more with dolls in those days. OK, there was no Barbie (I'm talking about mid-70s to mid-80s. I suppose a childhood around that time makes me ancient. Never mind.) and no teddy bears to speak of. We had well-loved rag dolls, and would celebrate doll weddings if anyone among friends had a boy-doll. Hmmm...nostalgia. But I digress. Back to the topic at hand. This is a song we sang to our dolls. Now A, my daughter, has well-loved dolls, and this is one she loves.
Ya bai ya
Come O you girls
Bagha bagha kashi mazhi basali baya
See how my little one is sitting
Iku na yete
She cannot hear 
Bagha bagha kashi mazhi soni baghate
See how my lovely one looks at me.

All children are fascinated by the moon. We were too. My grandmother sang this one for us.
Chandoba chandoba bhagalas ka?
Moon, moon, are you tired?
Limbonichya zhadamage lapalas ka?
Why are you hiding behind the neem tree?
Limbonicha zhaad karavandi
The neem tree is heavy with fruit
Mamacha wada chirebandi
My mama's (maternal uncle) house is strong and big
Mamachya wadyat yeun ja
Come to my mama's house
Tooproti khaun ja
Eat ghee and roti
Toopat padli mashi
Oh! there is a fly in the ghee
Chandomama rahila upashi!
The moon has remained hungry!
This song was followed by a lot of gleeful clapping. Why we were amused by the moon remaining hungry is something my adult self does not understand.

The maternal uncle's home is associated with a lot of fun. Even while addressing the Mama, we say "Tu" which is different from the "Tumhi" used for the paternal uncle. Somehow the use of "Tu" is for someone who is emotionally closer. A song for going to the mama's house-
Zuk zuk zuk zuk ageen gaadi
Dhuranchya resha havet kadhi 
Palti zade pahuya
Mamachya gawala jauya
Mama motha talewar
Reshim gheyi hazar war
(something...something)
Mamachi bayako sugrana
Roj roj poli shikarana
Gulabjam khau ya
Mamachya gawala jauya
This song is about going to mama's house or "Ajol" as it is called in marathi. It sings the praises of the mama and of the mami's (aunt's) culinary skills. Shikarana poli is roti eaten with a mash of ripe banana with milk and sugar- a delicacy for a small child.

Then there were the songs we sang in the monsoon. Maharashtra is originally a region of farmers, and it is quite recently that it has become (in)famous for other things. This song invites the rains to come and promise it some money.(as bribe?) But the song tells us that the rain does not like the bribe and only comes down when the paisa is not a real one. The song is from those days when one paisa was a large amount. Juxtapose this with the "Rain rain go away", which is not from a primarily agrarian society.
Ye re Ye re pausa
Tula deto paisa
Paisa zala khota
Paus ala motha
Ye ga Ye ga sari
Mazhe madke bhari
Sar ali dhun
Madke gele vahun!

Then there was a game in which we ran amok- I forget the actual game- and sang
Dongrala aag lagli
Pala re pala
Something along the lines of 'Fire on the mountain.'

And the game we girls played along the lines of 'Oranges and lemons' And sang
Chincha limbu paishya paishyala
Shaletlya mooli alya kashala
Khaun khaun khokla zala
Mamachya wadyat chor shirla
And the 'chor' who was caught was out.

Then here is something all mumbaikars will recognise. It is something we say as the idols of Ganesha are immersed at the end of the festival.
Ganapati bappa morya
Pudhchya varshi lavakar ya
Ganapati challe gavala
Chain padena amhala

There are so many more I could go on and on. There were the prayers my grandmother taught me. We would come home in the evening at the time the lights would come on "Divelagani" in marathi. Then we would say the "Shubhang Karoti", "Ram-raksha" and other shlokas. These are too long and many to write about here. Maybe another post sometime. I try to teach A whatever I can. A lot of it has been eclipsed by other, more pressing things like homework and after-school classes, and so many other trappings of our current existence. I would like to thank Tulika books for triggering off this line of thought. And I would like to end the post with a favourite of my grandmother's, a verse by the celebrated marathi poetess who was born in 1880, Bahinabai Chaudhari who has written some very down-to-earth and heartfelt poetry.
Are Saunsaar saunsaar
Jasa Tawa Chulyhawar
Aadhi Hatala Chatake
Teva Milate Bhakar  

Loosely translated- The world is like a pan on the fire. Only if we can take the heat on our hand, can we get the bread-bhakar

My grandmother's songs

Tulika books keep challenging us bloggers with new topics to blog about. Blogathon 4 is here. Let me see what I can make of it.

When my brothers and I were growing up, my maternal grandmother lived with us. My parents both worked, and we came home usually to a grandmother who welcomed us with her yummy food. Most of my memories of TLC are to do with her.

Aaji (grandmother in Marathi) was a very intelligent and well-read woman, inspite of not having had much schooling. She had been married at a tender age of 13, a common thing to happen in pre-independence India. She educated herself by reading all that she could get her hands on, and was a treasure trove of stories and songs. My early introduction to mythology has much to do with her. She knew a lot of songs that were sung by women as they went about their daily chores. Many songs are to do with mundane, everyday things like food, playing and sleeping.

I do not remember all the songs she sang to us, but some have remained, and I, in my turn, have sung them to my daughter. Here is one we sing to a baby, just able to sit on your lap, hold it's head up, and recognise birds and animals. The singer points with her finger at the baby's open palm--

Ithe ithe bus re moraa
Sit here O peacock
Bal ghaltay chaaraa
Baby's giving you food
Chaara kha, paani pi
Eat the food, drink water
Shetala ja,
Go to the field,
Shenga kha,
Eat the beans/corn
Balachya dokyavarun bhoor udun ja.
Fly over the baby's head and fly far away.

Another one, for a game- the singer and the baby clap one hand over the other in rhythm.

Aapdi thapdi
Gulachi papdi
Dhammaka laadu
Tel kadhu
Telangicha ekach haath
Dhar ga bala mazach kaan
Chyau mau
Patrvalicha paani piu
Handa paani gud-d-d-uppp!

Can't really translate this word-for-word. This is a sort of nonsense verse where we talk about food like the laadu- or laddu in Hindi- and gulachi papdi which is a kind of roti stuffed with jaggery. The song ends with drinking water- paani- from the handa or water-vessel, and both mother and singer enjoy the ending sound of gudupp, which translated loosely means finished/dissappeared. A song depicting finishing a satisfying meal in a way.

This was a song for a game played by at least two girls. The participants clap and give sort of both-hand-high-fives intermittently in time with the rhythm. Being women's songs, most of them featured girls. This game is played at one of those all-women events when we have pooja in the month of 'Shravan', and married women are visiting their parents' homes. Underlying the festive mood of the song and game is an undercurrent of the realisation that they can be so carefree only because they are in their 'maaher' or mother's home. "Laad sangu baapala" literally means that we can tell only our parent about the things that we enjoy. Things are changing now, but this still applies across a large feminine population in India, even today.

Zim pori zim
Kapalache bhing
Bhing gele phutun
Pori gelya rusun
Chal chal govinda yeto
Majavari gulaal phekito
Ya ya gullaalachya ya
Amchya venya zalya lal
Amchya venya mokalya
Soniyachya sakhalya
Ghadav ghadav re sonara
Soniyachya bilwara
Bilwarala khidkya
Amhi donhi bahini laadakya
Laad sangu baapala
Koni sangu aamhala

And here is a lullaby she sang to put us to sleep. It is a song from a 50s marathi movie, "Bala gau kashi aangai". Nimbonichya zadamage.  Not being a good enough singer, I only ever sang lullabies to A when only the two of us were together.

Hanumanache (Hanuman's) Ramayan

We received our copy of "Hanuman's Ramayan" last week. Tulika books very generously sent me a copy in Marathi. It was won by me for (of all things!) counting right. The timing was such that I could ask the Tulika guys to inscribe them with a 'Happy Birthday' message to A. Which they were very kind enough to do, as well as address the envelope to her. We would have liked to sit down immediately with the book, but had a lot of other pressing matters at hand.  Now that they have been taken care of, here we are.

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."

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.