For the girl child

So, our friend Rachna Maneesh Dhir wrote in, reminding us that today is National Girl Child Day and pointing out that at Tulika 'Every day is the day of the girl child'. True, we remarked. We have a lot of girls of varying ages working on creating beautiful books. We have a lot of girls playing, finding out and creating new things in our books. And we thought it might be fun to list some of them here.

Hina in the Old City introduces us to her world and to the craft of the zardosi embroiderers. The girls in School is Cool, Where's that Cat?, The Seed, The Veena Player, The Snow King's Daughter take us along on voyages of discovery - through their eyes we discover Tibet, how art restoration works, the different experiences of attending school between generations. Malli, The Village Fair, Priya's Day introduce us to rural and small town Tamil Nadu, with a slew of activities and festivities associated with the locale. Our heroines learn and teach at the same time, opening up a world to us through their exploration of it.

Sabri of Sabri's Colours and The Why-Why Girl wonder why some things are the way they are. They follow their passions, they ask unspoken questions about why some resources are denied to some people.
My Name is Amrita describes the life of a fine woman artist. Aditi leads us on many adventures, asking questions about what an adventure story and heroism and all that jazz means really, without being preachy about any of it. And Pippi does exactly what she feels like. While the girl in Malu Bhalu, ok, the girl polar bear pushes the boundaries of what a girl can do.


Have we left out any? Which girls from Tulika's books do you like?

Reviewing Kali and the Rat Snake

One of our favourite bloggers and all-round-nice-person, ChoxBox, wrote in to say: 
"My five-year old was reading Kali and the Rat Snake at school, so her teacher asked her to ‘review’ the book. Please see attached. It made me smile :)"

"Please pass my gratitude to Zai Whitaker - the story seems to have struck a chord with the child big time. She made Kali’s slate with paper and colour pens and is using it as a bookmark." she adds.

Thank you, Chox! You've made us smile:) More power to you and the budding book reviewer!

My journey with Aajoba - into the past and the present

Hearing from teachers who use Tulika's books in innovative ways is a great pleasure. And we were thrilled to hear that Veda Mohan, teacher at The Valley School, Bangalore, is using Aajoba to teach timelines. We asked her to write about it and she has obliged with a description of how she is using the book and the philosophy guiding the use of the book as well.

The back cover of the book Aajoba (pronounced aa-zo-ba) by young Taruja Parande reads ‘Simple, attractive, endearing ... this one-of-a-kind picture book is a moving tribute to a grandfather from a loving granddaughter in which the past and the present come together in an exploration of the universal theme underlying the book.’ What an apt description of what the book is about!  I couldn’t agree more.

I am going to share with you now, how and why using this book was such a rewarding experience as we teachers arduously attempted to integrate the subjects of Social science (history, geography and civics) and English with middle schoolers at The Valley School, Bangalore. I must also mention here, that in our school we incorporate the mixed age group learning approach, which means that children of Classes 5 to 7 are mixed in a single group for all learning experiences in the school - curricular-related work and surround learning. This adds to the challenge for content that will address the learning needs of all levels. We were on the lookout for books that would hold the thread of common content for learning for all age groups. Here was one book that fitted in perfectly - Aajoba.

Second, somewhere I recall having read that the book was recommended reading for 7-year-olds. Here we were using it as a research tool for 11-13 year olds. Never mind, I just told myself. And we continued to use the book.

Moving onto what we did in school ...... It is natural for us, as it is to a child, that when we pay most attention to issues that involve us - we will be deeply interested in them; we will also put our best efforts to know and learn about them. The project in the curriculum was ‘Timeline' - an abstract concept for children of middle school to grapple with.  We also chose to keep one core learning at the heart of everything that we did - to attempt to build essential Social Science and Language skills by helping children to use the ‘process of inquiry’. We observed that once inquiry is triggered then, children flow into the path of learning quite naturally. They create and walk their own path, tracking most learnings independently, and joyfully. They begin to own what they learn. The adult becomes the facilitator and the co-learner in the process. This separates the divide between the teacher and the taught. Both don the learning hat.

Here is the flow chart that broadly explains the framework of learning that we use:

The learning path would thus be unique to each child, but along some defined predetermined guidelines. These guidelines would help the child move towards the minimum learning of concepts, skills and behaviours that would be:

• Age appropriate
• Determined by the child’s capacity (stating the minimum learning was important and would be achieved by all, but the outer limit was open ended; once a child’s curiosity is triggered it’s best to allow him/her to follow his/her own trail of learning)
• Engage the child in simple tools of history - seek evidence and be able to connect/correlate to given facts and data
• Instil the child to find out on his/her own – through investigation and exploration; using reference and inference skills and if need be, draw conclusions

There were other learnings that we kept in mind, and explored. There were also many more that the children shared with us as they learnt, and often urged us to join them as they guided us through their exploration. We knew that helping children make significant connections is the only way to stir learning that will promote long term memory. It is the only way to remember things easily. Thus, the flow of learning for the project was simple - begin with learning of what the child can connect to and then move into the abstract - which included story-reading and comprehension of 'The Photograph' by Ruskin Bond. The entire comprehension exercise was focussed on queries that related to how time moved with the characters and events in the story. This was followed by a slide presentation on Ruskin Bond. We also used Isaac Asimov’s 'The fun they had' and TV Padma’s The Forbidden Temple.

Children then worked on creating a time line that included important events in their own life and as well as their parents. Children created their own questions to identify the events. Examples were given but it was an open ended task. They also had to identify events in the community, city, country and the world that happened around the same time. All data gathered had to be supported by evidence.

Ancestral timeline - each child chose a favourite ancestor and tracked his/her time line along with important events that happened in the country and the world at the same time. Again, the emphasis was that for each fact that the child collected, it had to be substantiated with evidence e.g. if it was a grandfather that the child was researching s/he had to collect artefacts that could include spectacles, walking stick, recordings of their favourite music pieces, letters/extracts from journals, birth certificates, newspaper cuttings, clothes and so on. The intent was to help children differentiate fact from opinion; fact from fiction/legend. A fact in history has to be supported by evidence otherwise it lacks credibility, they discovered as they progressed in their work.
Research in the library - to track the time line of at least one person, event or place that captured their attention.

While we had just about begun this activity (we had sent email to parents on the flow of learning for the project), an enthusiastic parent and a friend of Tulika, Rachna Dhir, told me about Aajoba. Before I could blink, the book found its way to my table. The cover and the title just drew my hand towards it, to pick it up in that instant and flip the first page. Then, I couldn’t put it down till I had read through it thrice – all in one go. My eyes were moist at the sheer simplicity of narration and the sincerity of approach. Here was a young writer who had connected so well to her past. She had tracked the story, not just as a narrator who would appeal to the young and the old, but also to all young history students. Each page in the book highlighted a learning that we teachers were striving to achieve through this project and hoping that the children would seek and imbibe in their process of learning e.g. the quotes that Aajoba collected, the meticulous ways in which he kept accounts, his precision to get the perfect triangles of a toast, the fact that they were cloth bags made of Aaji’s sarees and Aajoba’s pants - all facts that could be included as examples in their ancestral research, each little fact of Aajoba was backed by evidence. Aajoba was not a nostalgic story, but one that came from the heart and was so ‘real’. It could have been as much my grandfather’s story, as it could have been the writer’s, or any of the children’s. Was this power of empathy coming through Aajoba’s story line, the illustrations, Aajoba himself or...! I wondered. Instantaneously, I shared the book with whoever I knew would find value (and soon needed more copies of it, with Rachna coming once again to my aid, since my friends did not just want to read it once, but also keep it for a while to read it again ... just one more time). We also made a grand announcement of Aajoba along with another Tulika book, The Forbidden Temple, as must read books at the KFI (Krishnamurti Foundation of India) Teachers’ Conference in Oct 2010 to group of 100 plus teachers of K schools in India. Both books were soon grabbed for a quick look!

While we did not see the immediate value of what we had stirred, as we were progressing through the Timelines project, we realised only towards the end that we had drawn the children to connect to a culture that was their every own. Many parents and children shared with us how the project had opened new ways of bonding within the immediate and the extended family – the child with the parent and the grandparent/relative, and for the parent with his/her own parent, for the grandparents with their children and grand children (and interestingly, for us too - between the teacher and the child and the teacher and the parent).

One child discovered how little he knew of his grandfather, since he had never really spent time with him in the past. He said, ‘My grandfather was just there at home’. The fresh interaction through his research had brought them closer, as perhaps never before. Now, he discovered ‘some of the fun things that his grandfather did, and how he was like his grandfather in some interesting ways’, as a smile quickly lit his face. There were times when we smiled at the funny narratives. At other times, we were also aghast at discovering some truths that were so close and connected to great and significant events of the time; some left a lump in the throat at the courage of a few ancestors, the wisdom of many others and very often the innocence of an 11-13 year old.
And I found in each page of Aajoba, a relationship that comes to life from the its pages, a culture that is simple, yet rich in its values – attitude towards money, love for nature (especially the simple yet important thought of looking after a plant even if it is a solitary creeper in one’s backyard), life’s lessons directly told in Aajoba’s advice, precision of detail in the accounts he kept, and the value of playing for the sheer joy of playing (so, so vital in a world where a child’s time today is driven to accomplish a winning place in one competition or another). Aajoba’s simplicity and yet scientific approach had me completely enthralled.

As for the children and our project in school, there was one child whose research went back to an ancestor who was sixteen generations into history, another tracked her ancestral lineage to Europe (when we had all assumed that she and all her generations had always been Indians) and the third spoke to us about how her great, great granduncle in his middle years, bumped quite by chance at a railway station, into his long lost brother... a brother he had been separated from, in his childhood years. And each story, however hundreds of years old was backed by evidence. Many of them meticulously explained the traits, habits and achievements of their ancestors and the artefacts they brought to class were handled with great reverence, and excitement that was expressed in hushed tones and whispers. Just the same spirit of reverence that Taruja shows with her own grandfather in Aajoba.

Now, when we can integrate such learnings into mainstream subjects, I wonder if there still is a need for a separate value education class in our schools – a set norm in many Indian schools. Well, if we do need to have value education classes, here is a book that will do the magic – it can be used as a trigger for a value education project for an entire term.

Our story doesn’t end here – the children’s research brought great learnings for us. In a report writing activity the children were asked to first narrate an incident that they had experienced as a child in their own words. Then, they were instructed to interview two adults who were part of the incident to get their (the two adults’) versions of the same event. The children followed the process sequentially. Almost all discovered that the stories did not completely match. They then tabulated the similarities and differences. When asked they inferred without batting an eyelid, how the same incident had many mixed versions – and how they were sometimes not able to decipher the actual series of events because ‘it happened so long ago’. We did not have to explain too much when we said that the study of history would always have the same challenges. One bright boy piped in with a comment in a class discussion, ‘Well, that’s what makes history fun!’ ... and another said, ‘Hmmn! If Taruja (the writer of Aajoba) has a brother’, ‘... or a sister’ prodded another instantly, ‘... we’d have Aajoba – Version 2’. And the debate went on ... That had me smiling. Deep in my heart I heard myself say, if the children had garnered so much about loving, learning and living through such a simple story, then it truly is a story that needs to reach out to many, many, many more children. And I am glad I am writing about it.

Thank you Taruja – and we hope to see you in our school some day! We’d like to have you tell Aajoba to our children in your very own voice. And thank you Tulika – you’re leaving behind, through your books a great legacy for the young and the young at heart! Here’s a big hug to TT&T (Tulika Team and Taruja)!

- Veda

New Readers, New Directions in Children’s Literature

The Kerala State Institute of Children's Literature (KSICL) organised  a three-day workshop called New Readers, New Directions in Children’s Literature for writers, illustrators, publishers and teachers from Kerala at the Trivandrum Bookfair (18-26 December 2010). Radhika Menon, Tulika Publishers, facilitated the workshop and reflects upon the experience.

(Picture: Rubin, Director, KSICL, Anita Rampal from Delhi University, Krishna Kumar from Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti)

Kerala has clearly had a head start as far as children’s books are concerned, with its long history of children’s publishing. Over the last two or three years, there has been a change in the kinds of books being published, thanks to the initiatives taken by the Kerala Bala Sahitya Institute. Private publishers, too, have started publishing children’s books with renewed focus. This is clearly in response to the greater demand for them from the market as well as schools. Government initiatives to promote reading literacy, greater focus on library buying for government schools, private schools - and the many international schools that are opening up - taking steps to build up their libraries and the opening of chain bookstores across the country are some of the factors driving this demand.

Children’s publishing is at a kind of crossroads today and it is important at this juncture to reflect on past experiences of writing, illustrating and publishing in Malayalam and ask some hard questions. Has this long tradition of publishing broken new ground in children’s writing or illustrations? Has it generated fresh thinking about children’s literature?

The current focus on building up school libraries and using books in the classroom is clearly a result of educational reforms sparked off by the National Curriculum Framework. The revised NCF 2005 which was published after a long process of discussion and debate by a wide group of eminent scholars from different areas, teachers and parents is now widely accepted as the framework for developing school curriculum and text books across the country. “It is guided by the Constitutional vision of India as a secular, egalitarian and pluralistic society founded on the values of social justice and equality.” The NCF 2005 has been translated into all the nineteen scheduled languages of the Constitution and is widely accessible. It is an inspiring document which can impact school education in India significantly enriching it in the process.  We can already see this happening in textbook writing and in curriculum design.

One of the guiding principles of the NCF is enriching the curriculum to provide for overall development of children rather than remain textbook centric.  It strongly recommends using a range of sources in the classroom both text books and non-textbooks. In this context  books will play a much greater role in children’s everyday learning in the classroom. Children’s books with its diverse and creative content can open up wonderful opportunities in the classroom both for teachers and the students to explore a multitude of topics – social, cultural, emotional,  political apart from being excellent supplementary resource for different  subjects.

(Picture: Radhika Menon at the seminar)
 
I think if writers reflect on the NCF’s goals and concerns it will help gain a broader perspective on children’s books and will it will inspire them to break out of old conventional ways of writing and illustrating. It can be a strong motivator to rethink the kind of content that has been typical of children’s books.  To do this with the fullest artistic intergrity is the challenge before writers and illustrators.

This quote from NCF 2005 makes the deep connect between books and children’s learning clear:

Appreciation of beauty and art forms is an integral part of human life. Creativity in arts, literature and other domains of knowledge is closely linked. Education must provide the means and opportunities to enhance the child’s creative expression and the capacity for aesthetic appreciation. Education for aesthetic appreciation and creativity is even more important today when aesthetic gullibility allows for opinion and taste to be manufactured and manipulated by market forces.  

NCF 2005 p. 11

Children’s books offer ‘teachable moments’ that are invaluable. Though it sounds didactic, it is really the opposite. The sponaneity with which a book can open up the most difficult and complex issues for discussion is truly amazing – and I speak from both my experience as a teacher and as a parent of two book-loving boys. Children are eager to question and respond when they hold a book in their hand which talks to them. They are negotiating their own world and not the adult’s. Through books and our interaction with the young readers, we offer them a democratic experience which empowers.

It will now be useful for us to ask what kind of books will reflect this contemporary reality
·        Books that include experiences of different kinds of childhoods. It is not just a mainstream middle class childhood but those of the marginalized and the economically backward - but not sentimental and full-of-sympathy stories which do little to make children relate to them or empathise with the characters.
·        Picture books that open up a dialogue between the words and pictures. Pictures filling spaces that the words create and offering children a visual experience that enhances the reading and sometimes is complete in itself.
·        Books that break away from the tried and tested and the instruct-and-inform mode.
·        Books strongly rooted in our own cultural context – both in the writing and illustrating.
·        Books that use language and writing styles that are imaginative and natural to the story, that represent different communities, that reflect our multilinguality.

In the workshop that followed, I gave the participants  a kind of questionnaire which was designed to make them look at different picture books - both at the text and pictures - carefully, and write about it. In the process, they were made aware of what makes a picture book. By critically looking at text and pictures, and commenting, the participants gained an understanding of how the different aspects have to come together – story, writing style, length, age appropriateness, illustrations, style of illustrations, design, layout – to make a good picture book.

There were also discussions and readings from their own writing which gave me a further understanding of how writing in Indian languages shorn of all its conventional baggage could give Indian children’s literature a strong, distinctive voice. This has been a constant learning process for Tulika while doing books simultaneously in eight Indian languages and English. Translating books into English and translating English books by writers who bring a different sensibility to language creates a richly diverse range of books for children – contemporary, democratic and rooted in a plural, multilingual culture.

Discussing Kabir

A roundup of news from the Kabir blogfest so far:

Niranjana has posted a review on her blog. "Jaya Madhavan’s Kabir the Weaver-Poet has now rooted Kabir in my mind as a gadfly who delighted in offending fundamentalists of all stripes, a religious poet whose work showcases an earthy, entertaining wit, a mystic as much as a logician, and a non-conformist who really didn’t give a damn about public opinion.  He might be a saint, but he was quite the dude." she says. Read the rest here.

The wordjunkie on Saffron Tree has this to say: "Jaya Madhavan's retelling is well written and makes some very complex issues - communal hatred, intolerance, caste, even the frightening phenomenon of mob frenzy - accessible to young audiences. I liked the spareness of her writing style, very much in keeping with the simplicity of the man at the heart of this book. She adds a dash of fantasy too, inventively casting the tools of Kabir's trade - Dhaga, Takli, Warp, Weft, Spindle - as narrators and loyal friends of the poet." Read the rest of her review here.

Chintan Girish Modi of the Kabir Project got this blogfest up and running. And he has sent us some fascinating links...

First from an article he has written, titled Initiating Kabir in the Classroom with an introduction to the CDs and other material produced by the Kabir Project for the purpose: "The Hindi classroom has traditionally been the space in which most students encounter the poetry of Kabir. This space can be redeemed from the drudgery of how poetry gets taught in our schools – where poems get looked at as artifacts produced by some creative genius, meant to be memorized by low mortals who can barely get at the meaning through a simplistic paraphrase. We want teachers and students to appreciate the fact that poetry is not frozen in textbooks but often quite rooted in people’s everyday lives."

"So when Kabir makes an entry into schools, he is probably going to ask all kinds of funny questions which will not fit in with the systems we have set up" - from Kabir Revisited by Vishakha Chanchani, available here 

"I liked the idea which was brought out during the festival of Kabir in Bangalore, that ‘Kabir interrogates the world’ in which we live. He asks often very disturbing questions. Jane was pointing out, that these questions would also be disturbing to teachers. Many teachers like to give answers, they do not really like to be asked questions which do not have neat answers. The figure of the Guru in Kabir’s thought is almost a counter-cultural figure. Somewhere Kabir says that the ‘Guru is the root of wisdom’. Who is the Guru? he is constantly asking." - from  Reflections on 'Kabir in Education' by Jyoti Sahi online here

Also, a delightful multi-media account of a day with Kabir.

Finding life within the work we do...

The Kabir blogfest is on. Do read author Jaya Madhavan's blog post on how the book came into being. And here's Samina Mishra's response to the book Kabir the Weaver Poet by Jaya Madhavan... 

My first encounter with Kabir, perhaps like all school going children in India, was in my Hindi textbook. I don’t remember being struck by too much other than the fact that his language was so much simpler than the rest of the Hindi curriculum, despite being in a dialect I was not completely familiar with, and I could actually write about the dohas without having to study. In hindsight, in the context of middle school Hindi, that is saying a lot. Kabir’s poetry, infused with an everyday life, encouraged an everyday engagement that even the most pedagogically challenged teachers could not take away. But, to be honest, it didn’t really stay with me except:
Maati kahe kumhaar se, tu kya ronde moye
Ek din aisa aayega, main rondungi toye

Perhaps that was because of my mother who has a fondness for this doha. And then, in the last two years, I encountered Kabir again through the work of two gifted filmmakers – Rajula Shah and Shabnam Virmani. Shabd Nirantar and Had Anhad both opened up for me the word of Kabir in all its everyday profundity. The mysticism inherent in everyday tasks, the quiet observance of the world around you, the elusive core of being without the essentialising of becoming. These are ideas that are best understood in an experiential way and so, the films worked for me by giving me the space to experience that in the darkness of the theatre – the poetry, the images and the people in the films who seemed to have grasped the simplicity of it all.

To try and share that experience with children is not an easy task and I am all admiration for Jaya Madhavan to have undertaken the task. It is important to create art for children by according them the same respect and intelligence that we accord adults and by tackling questions of conflict, death and the quest for an inner spirituality, Madhavan does just this. It will mean different things to different children – that is in the nature of all art. Some may just respond to Kabir’s message of equality, some to the device of Dhaga, a thread from Kabir’s loom that takes us through the events of Kabir’s last day in life and some may find in the book a desire to learn more about Kabir and about their own questions.

I read some bits out to my nine-year old son and he read some more over my shoulder. He was prompt in saying that he liked it.

“But what did you like?” I persisted.

“Well, that he says that people should be equal… and that even his tools – the charkha and the thread and stuff – can all have a life of some kind. I mean it’s not really that they have a life, but it’s nice to think that they do…”

“Why? Why do you think that? Does that tell us something about our work?” (Forgive the leading question – I was trying to push the conversation further.)

“Ya,” he declared, with a smile, “That we should work with concentration and do our work well.”

Yes, that’s something he’s sure to have heard before at home and in school. But if he can connect that oft-repeated message to a nascent life that lies within all work that we do, then is that not Kabir’s word within the word:
Jaise til mein tel hai, jyon chakmak mein aag
Tera sayeen tujh mein, tu jaag sake to jaag

The Kabir Blogfest is on...

You are invited to join the Kabir blogfest, organised in collaboration with the Kabir Project. If you have read Kabir the Weaver Poet, you can revisit the book or respond to it on your blog. Or send in your response to us. You can also blog about Kabir, write about how you have been touched by his poetry or the stories around his life or write about how you have responded to him. Do remember to leave a comment with a link to your post below. Read all about the blogfest here.

Here is Usha Mukunda's response to the book, along with responses from young people she has shared the book with:

Discovering Kabir

Many of us grew up learning Kabir’s Dohas at school. If we were blessed, we might  have had  a gifted teacher who brought him alive through his poetry, but for most  of us, Kabir remained a shadowy figure and soon faded from memory. Jaya Madhavan, the author of Kabir  The Weaver-Poet published by Tulika, seems to have rediscovered the man, the mystic and his message through a fortuitous encounter. What ensued is, in itself, a magical story and the book that was born from that story is a gem. You can read more about this in her foreword. The strong personal affinity between author and subject permeates the book but in no way is it cloying. Rather, it draws the reader into an intimate circle and the result is an absorbing and thought-provoking read.
The author has chosen to set the whole story in the space of one day, dividing the book into three main segments, Daybreak, Midday and Nightfall. This gives her the leisure to describe sights, sounds and feelings at each time of day. There is a deftness in the narrative like the intertwining of threads during weaving.
“The ghat was empty. The dark sky would soon rip under the weight of the morning sun.....Kabir liked best to pause by the river...to watch its seamless fabric transformed into a stretch of shimmering magic with the waters running zigzag. He had been a weaver  for so long. Was that why he saw weaves everywhere?”
The author also manages  to convey the continuing nature, not only of man’s daily rhythms but also of his patterns and prejudices. All this is done against the background of Kabir’s ‘dohas’ which give us clear insights  if only we are ready to ‘see’ them!
“Kabir did not notice the thread or his bright, jolly face. He was singing softly, “Like oil within seed, like fire within flint, God is right inside you – find him if you can.”
Dakshayini, who read this book when she was 13 has some interesting comments. “Usually when I read a mystery, I can’t put it down but this book was un-put-down-able! I think the story of Kabir’s life and the way it was told held my attention. Ordinarily I would not have picked up this book about some saint’s life but my mother suggested it and once I started it caught me. It was such a colourful book.” It seems very important that parents, teachers and librarians try to nudge children into reading Indian writers’ books. There are very many excellent ones and it would be a pity if they were passed by.
A whimsical fancy of the author in personifying the loom, the weft, the warp, the spindle, the shuttle and most crucial of all, the dhaga, has appealed to many young readers I spoke to. “It added fun to the story”, says Yamuna, age 13. “Cute”, said another reader. Yes, it did add an unexpected turn to the story especially when they gathered their  forces and set out to save Kabir and ended up playing a crucial part in the popular  account of his death. Roses for remembrance? Using Dhaga to release tales and myths about Kabir added a swirl and a twirl! The black and white illustrations by Saudha Kasim are suitable muted and blend beautifully into the story.
The story is interspersed with Kabir’s Dohas and I wondered how young readers responded to them.
“I skipped them,” said Yamuna  and Rishon, “but later when my teacher taught them in class, they made sense.”
“I liked the way there was an explanation and a background for each Doha,” said Daksha. “That made it more natural.”
When I suggested to a young reader that the final part of the book seemed very violent for children, I was struck by her response. “The ending made me cry. It made me see how pointless it is to hate and kill. Even now we are doing the same thing.”
As we journey with Kabir through his life, I wonder if we emerge a little sadder but wiser. Jaya Madhavan has managed to bring Kabir the weaver and the poet into our hearts and minds. The rest of the work is ours.

Question for Jaya: Usha says, "Jaya Madhavan, the author of Kabir The Weaver-Poet published by Tulika, seems to have rediscovered the man, the mystic and his message through a fortuitous encounter." Could you tell us about the encounter? How did the book begin?

Join the Kabir Blogfest

Who is Kabir? What was his philosophy? Why does he continue to hold so much sway over our imaginations? And, most of all, why does he have such contemporary resonance? These are some of the questions that Jaya Madhavan's Kabir the Weaver Poet could answer for the open, curious reader.

You are invited to join the Kabir blogfest. If you have read Kabir the Weaver Poet, you can revisit the book or respond to it on your blog. Or send in your response to us. You can also blog about Kabir, write about how you have been touched by his poetry or the stories around his life or write about how you have responded to him. Do remember to leave a comment with a link to your post below.
Meanwhile, selected individuals and blogs will also respond to Kabir the Weaver Poet in the coming two weeks - the links to other blogs will be posted here. Responses to the book sent in by individuals will also feature on the Tulika blog itself. Jaya Madhavan, author, will field questions and respond to some of the content featured here on her blog. 


This blogfest is in collaboration with the Kabir Project, an artist-in-residence project at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore. They have been exploring the contemporary socio-political resonances of the poetry of Kabir, the 15th century mystic and have produced films, music CDs and books of poetry that touch upon concerns around identity, conflict, peace, oral traditions, secularism and more. They collaborate in this blogfest as part of the run-up to Dhai Akhar Prem Ka, the Kabir festival in Mumbai from January 14 to 23, 2011. The festival brings together film screenings, music performances, talks and interactions with schools and colleges across Mumbai. "The Kabir Festival, is envisioned as a festive yet critical immersion in the ideas of Kabir," according to their Facebook page. You can also find them on Twitter. You can read more about the Festival here.

Join the Kabir blogfest. Here's an excerpt from an earlier post to get you started:  "Kabir, the word/name and possibly the person as I have heard/read of him all stand italicized in my mind. Too wisplike for bold and too finespun for an underline...Possibly many childhoods like my own must have felt its tranquil reflective touch when in the confines of a choking syllabi and the rote learning rut...Jaya Madhavan turns Kabir's companions of the loom into characters animated - speaking to the reader, bickering, laughing, conspiring against conspiracies and protecting their friend who seemed to attract trouble by the double." Read the rest of the post here.


Here's to beginning a new year with Kabir.

Writing and reading My Brother Tootoo

Hello reader. Hello brand new year. As a new year begins, spare a thought for the near and dear ones of authors who are caught in the final throes of finishing a book. If you can't imagine what that must be like, Nandita Mahajan, daughter of author Urmila Mahajan, gives us a ring-side view of the action plus an intimate review of My Brother Tootoo

When my mother first told me she was writing a book, I wasn’t that surprised. She has always been one for inventing stories. When I was a child I’d heard several of them, all tailor-made to fit my interest. So, writing a book seemed to me a very characteristic and predictable thing for her to do. My lack of surprise however, only lasted until I read it.

The first time I read My Brother Tootoo, it was still unfinished and unpolished. However, being a literature student and having read hundreds of books myself, I could tell that this was turning out to be a really unusual one. Even though the plot hadn’t quite been formed yet, it was the astounding portrayal of characters that stood out from the beginning.

Before long, I became the guinea-pig. I was made to read the book at various stages of development, and offer suggestions. As the rate of its production accelerated, however, I didn’t get to see the excerpts as often as before and my mother was often staying up till late at night, writing. I next read it as a finished product, after it was published.

To call My Brother Tootoo a children’s adventure story would be a gross underestimation. As I went deeper into the novel, I found that it is rich in meaning and is among other things, a study of human nature. It is a story within a story. Rini, a sensitive girl of about fifteen, writes about the events of three summers ago, in the hope that they will “feel like a story about someone else.” At the same time, she writes a diary, giving the reader a glimpse into the present. The opening line of the book seems to be a premonition of things to come.

Dear Diary,
Mama says home is a place where at some time or the other, everything has happened.

We are introduced to Rini’s brother Tootoo, who is a late talker, and Murli, the son of the local presswallah. The three become friends, despite Rini’s initial disapproval of Murli’s disobedient, headstrong nature. Before long, the children find themselves in the middle of an unexpected adventure.

The novel’s remarkability lies largely in the perceptiveness of Rini’s narrative. The events themselves, though extraordinary, could have happened to anyone. I think that it is in my mother’s view of the world that she shows her true genius. The story is set in a regular Indian city, and is about a seemingly ordinary family that consists of a mother, a father, a grandmother and two children. Yet, as the story unfolds we find that there is more to each character than meets the eye, and people are often much more than they seem to be. The theme of appearances versus reality runs throughout the novel and adds to its sense of secrecy. It is the pursuit of secrets that leads the children into forbidden domain, to a point of no return.

The characters of the three children in particular are portrayed with astonishing depth. Their thoughts and actions make them seem real to the reader. Rini’s character is disclosed mostly through her writing which subtly mirrors her own nature. The connection that she feels with the natural world and her observancy are etched into her entire narrative. It is in these little descriptions that my mother’s originality emerges; in the viewing of everyday occurrences by a highly observant mind.

The story is peopled with an array of characters – philosophical Mad Madhav, the barber with a difference, outrageous Colonel Sinha, miserly Rice Aunty and of course, the banyan grove which looms up hooded in secrecy, and assuming the significance due to a character. 

Though the novel is labelled a children’s book, its insightful nature ensures that it can be appreciated by readers of all ages. At every stage, I found it possible to relate to the characters and to grow increasingly fond of them. My Brother Tootoo, I’d say, is a novel worth reading.

- Nandita Mahajan