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+

Mukand and Riaz

Did something really interesting yesterday. Was at Hari Shree Vidyashram, Chennai, thanks to a sudden invitation from Shreepriyaa asking if I would talk to the kids prior to their launching into an Aman ki Asha project…The Aman ki Asha is an initiative of The Times of India and The Jang group of Pakistan to engage in initiatives that underline the hope for peace between the two countires. The children at Hari Shree are part of a larger plan to send messages of peace on white handkerchiefs so they can be tied to flutter all the way from Amritsar to Lahore… this, in a nutshell; you will find more online.

Anyhow, when the invitation came, I jumped because we have just the book for something like this: Nina Sabnani’s Mukand and Riaz. We also have a copy of the award-winning animation film Nina made, on which she based the book. Using the art on cloth done by women from the region of Sindh in India and Pakistan, she has created a story of friendship between two children, Mukand and Riaz, in a simple and poignant way.

As they watched Mukand waving and waving to his friend Riaz from aboard the S.S. Shirala, and they saw the ship getting smaller and smaller, and the final credits began to roll, there were soft and loud whispers, and heads turning… “He’s crying, da!” someone said. I turned to look and saw that many in the approximately 200-strong group of 7 to 9 year-olds, wiping away tears, girls and boys. The children were palpably and visibly moved by the story of friendship Nina had told.

They understood immediately the loss of friends and in the course of the excited discussion that followed, many questions came up. To do with friendship of course, and moving, and violence, and peace, and home and lots more. One little boy jumped up to say that his grandfather too had grown up in Karachi, where Mukand and Riaz’s story is located. Then, when they realized Mukand was actually Nina’s father, and that he really had a friend called Riaz, they were beside themselves with excitement. Where is Mukand? How will he find Riaz? I want to meet the person who made this film. The pictures are made of cloth. I want to read this book. I want to read this book. Is it in the library? Where will I find it?

By the time I took my leave, the children were sparkling with understanding and ideas. “You may be sure they will talk about nothing else all day,” Teacher Jayanthi said as we parted.

There is a postscript.

I wrote to Nina right away, about how the children had reacted and how proud we were all over again for the lovely book she had done. She wrote back: "What you write makes me cry too. I am so touched and what a day to share this with me, on my birthday. Thanks so very much!!!!! The best news today. Big hugs and love..."

Big hugs and love is what the children of the world need, I guess. What the children of classes 2, 3 and 4 of Hari Shree would like as a return birthday gift from Nina is lots more books like this.

- Sandhya Rao

You can watch Mukand and Riaz on YouTube. Ajit Nair has interviewed Nina Sabnani and blogged about the animated film.
Amba blogs about Nina's presentation of the book at a conference - Mantles of Myth: The Narrative in Indian Textiles, organised by Siyahi in Jaipur.
There are reviews of the book on the Tulika site. Bharati Srinivasan, special educator and creative writing facilitator, mentions how she used Mukand and Riaz to teach creative writing and dispel prejudice.

Writing creatively in the company of Tulika books

This was the first time I have ‘taught’ creative writing. I read voraciously and am at a loss if I don’t have a book on standby to read after my current one. Books open up worlds that I may never inhabit, with perspectives very different from my own. Words are used with such skill that I am under the spell of the author. How do I open up these worlds to young children so that they are never alone when there are books in this world? How do I nurture children’s curiosity and the urge to express themselves without fear and with joy?

These were my thoughts when I agreed to ‘teach’ creative writing to six mixed-age classrooms with second, third, and fourth standard children. I had noticed that these children were extremely articulate while speaking but were strangely reticent when they had to write. So I decided my goal, if you will, in this first year was to create spaces in the classroom where children were free to express themselves without the shadow of criticism, evaluation, or that looming demon – spelling mistakes.

I realized that one needs access to good quality writing in order to learn to recognize it and acquire the skills to write well. Of course, there is no dearth of good children’s literature. But I wanted the children to realize that well written books that are interesting to read, with thought provoking illustrations need not be from the West but published in India; that characters need not have exotic, English names to be interesting.

We read, It’s Only a Story by Cathy Spagnoli when we discussed where authors get their ideas from. Children loved the circular nature of the story and enjoyed predicting what was going to happen next. A couple of children even commented how it reminded them of Hen Sparrow Turns Purple. I used Snoring Shanmugam and Colour-Colour Kamini to illustrate how one uses characters and setting to tell stories. They welcomed the characters back in Colour-Colour Kamini as if they were reunited with old friends they thought they would never meet again.

My biggest surprise was with Mukand and Riaz by Nina Sabnani. It so happened that I read the story to some of the classes soon after the Bombay blasts. Class teachers were disturbed to hear some of the children talk and comment disparagingly about Muslims, especially as there were Muslim students in the classes. Mukand and Riaz made the whole situation real to the children, provided a historical context, and the children could identify with the characters. “Muslims” became real people, real children, just like them and not some demonised abstraction. They loved the surprise they got when they realized that Mukand was the author’s father and the ‘story’ really happened. The illustrations in all the books I used extended the children’s imagination and they remarked how they help in hooking their interest in making them want to read further.

Using Indian literature that the children could relate to made story writing accessible and possible in children’s minds, opening them up to the notion that they could write interesting, enjoyable stories set in familiar contexts, that they need not be exotic and ‘foreign’, that they too could write stories that others would want to read.

- Bharati Srinivasan, Special Educator and Creative Writing Facilitator