Have you met...

...Gagan and Chikki?

Gagan is from a town in Punjab, in northern India.He and his friend, Chikki the cat, love to play and to listen to stories.One day, Avneet Aunty comes to their house. She talks and talks on her mobile phone, kyonkyon kyankyan, kyonkyon kyankyan...

Avneet Aunty's Mobile Phone

by Kavita Singh Khale

Bilingual Picture Book 

Age 3+ 

Have you met Lobsang?

The 'roof of the world'. Tibet, north of India. So high up in the Himalaya mountains that your head sticks into the clouds! That’s where Lobsang comes from. Why did she have to leave her parents there and come away to a city far away in India?

The Snow King's Daughter

Story by Sowmya Rajendran

Pictures by Proiti Roy

Picture Book

Age 6+

Have you met Norbu?

Norbu lives in Sikkim in northeastern India, a place of high mountains, rhodendron flowers, Buddhist monasteries...and many friendly monkeys, one of whom runs off with Norbu’s new yellow shoes!

Norbu's New Shoes
by Chewang Dorji Bhutia

Bilingual Picture Book

Age 3+

Have you met Malli? 

Malli is from a little village in Tamilnadu in southern India, where there are lots of coconut trees and the people speak Tamil. Malli goes everywhere with her goat. She also has many other friends, who give her fresh sweet milk, mangoes, a freshly laid egg, a rose... 

Malli 

Story by Jeeva Raghunath

Pictures by Nancy Raj

Bilingual Picture Book 

Age 3+

Have you met Mukand?  

Mukand lived in Karachi and his best friend was Riaz. They would go to school together, play cricket, eat biscuits from their favourite bakery... Than came Partition and Mukand had to go away, leaving Riaz behind. But he never forgot his friend.

Mukand and Riaz

Story and Pictures by Nina Sabnani

Picture Book 

Age 5+

Have you met Shirvi? 

Shirvi is a Warli girl from Maharashtra in western India. The Warlis live in the forests and are known for their dramatic paintings — stick-like figures drawn in white on the reddish mud walls of their homes. Are the people in the paintings really the silvery moon creatures Shirvi meets one night?

Dancing on Walls

Story by Shamim Padamsee

Pictures by Uma Krishnaswamy

Picture Book 

Age 4+

Tulika's Tamil stories: Bridging the spoken and the written

Some time ago, a lively local radio jockey called to ask what I thought was special about Tamil. Words, I replied. Original and borrowed and the way people used them. In different places, in different ways. All amazingly creative.

Tamil is such a versatile language, but what happens when we write for children? It’s the Full Missyamma Mode: didactic, prescriptive, and correct at the cost of resonance, mood and elegance and if Tamil doesn’t have resonance, mood and elegance, what does it have?All this and more. That’s why it was so much fun the other evening with the irrepressible Jeeva Raghunath, a born storyteller. The event was a celebration of Tulika’s Tamil books in the spirit of Madras Week. Come on, she said, TuliKAKAvin kathai kelunga… listen to Tulikaka’s stories. She went from the mad verse of Aavilirundu Akkvarai to the peculiar sounds of Gasa Gasa Para Para’s ‘jnya-jnyaa-jnyi-jnyii’ to the great merriment of children and adults present at the Madras Terrace House. It didn’t matter even if you didn’t understand all of it… fun and laughter go beyond words.

She told the stories through the frame story of her popular Malli, capturing the flavour of place and tongue with her warmly amusing imitations. Once past her own books, she then went on to Cathy Spagnoli’s classic Priyavin Oru Naal, giving it full sound and tune with old Tamil film melodies, and Muthu’s story of the magic vessels… and lots more, each rendered in a special and different Tamil accent, all spoken and heard on the streets of Namma Chennai. Kamaal Hassan, you got competition machi!

Jeeva has a fresh, new approach to Tamil and she is completely convinced that when children read, they must connect. So, not for her the tongue-twisting chasteness of high literature (beautiful though it is, she always says; she loves her mozhi, she always says). Her tongue twisters leave the reader gasping for more.

But there are always naysayers and recently we went on a critical appraisal of Tamil for children’s books. As always, we went to our friend, philosopher and guide, Cre-A Ramakrishnan. His considered opinion: there are some things that are sacrosanct, but the effort must be to bridge the gap between the spoken and the written. Go on, he said, you’re heading the right way.

So, adjust the mindset light-a for a wonderful journey through Jeeva’s stories, written and told. Piragu you will understand what I mean… Semma Tamil, Namma Tamil!

- Sandhya Rao, Author and Editor