'Riddlespeak' with Nadine D'Souza

From: The 13th Riddle by Nadine D'Souza, with illustrations by Ajanta Guhathakurta

Chakrampur is a prosperous little town thanks to its smart mayor, Piloo Paheliji. He loves to show off how clever he is by asking riddles no one can answer, and even celebrates a Riddle Day every year. Whoever can answer his riddle that day stands to win a thousand rupees. But twelve years have gone by, and there have been no winners. The thirteenth Riddle Day dawns... 

Author Nadine D’Souza is a freelance writer, who loves to read and write stories for children. She also loves riddles and sent us some of her favourite brain-teasers! 

A tête-à-tête with the Mumbai-based author:

Do you like talking in riddles or do you just like riddles?
Like almost everyone else, I love a good riddle. They compel us to use common sense and the answers are always in plain sight, if we know where to look. However, I have to admit, like poor Paheliji, I do get a bit impatient with people who insist on talking in riddles all the time!

Do you know anyone in real life like Piloo Paheliji, Pammilal or the clever boy?

I've known a few Pammilals in real life. There's always that one individual in almost every classroom or workplace who loves to flatter the teacher or the boss, much to the amusement and sometimes annoyance of the others. As for the clever boy, he appears in one of my favourite stories - the delightful classic tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. He’s the little child who can’t help pointing out that the vain emperor is not wearing any clothes at all!

Some of your favourite riddles are...?
What is the beginning of eternity, the end of time and the beginning of every ending?
The letter 'e'

What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?
A stamp

If there are three cups of sugar and you take one away, how many do you have?
You have just one - the one you took away.

Do you write for children or is this your first story? What inspired you to write a children's story?
I loved to read as a child and I always knew I wanted to be a writer. But I started writing children’s stories just for fun, to give myself a break from my regular work. This led me to re-read the books I loved from my childhood, and that’s when I knew that this was something I wanted to keep doing. I have previously written a picture book called ‘Revenge of the Puppets’ and at the moment I’m working on a novel for children.

What topics do you usually write on?
I used to write for a group of magazines which reported on the broadcasting, animation and music industry. Since then I’ve ventured into freelance writing, a job which allows me the space and time to indulge in that wonderful world of storytelling.

Order The 13th Riddle on our website.

Riddle Us Red

It can speak, but doesn’t have a mouth.
It can travel, but doesn’t have legs.
It doesn’t have a nose.

But sometimes has ears.

And it definitely has a smell. 

WHAT IS IT?

A book!!

Piloo Paheliji from The 13th Riddle

Nadine D's Souza's Piloo Paheliji is scoffing at us. 

"Too easy-peasy a brain-teezee?" we ask.

"You're embarassing me, "he says, adjusting his spotted tie.

So we've got a real riddle for you. From our latest picture book The 13th Riddle (so it is Piloo approved). The first 3 people who send the right answer, get a copy of The 13th Riddle. Absolutely FREE.

Pammilal, Piloo’s faithful secretary, doesn’t think you can do it. 

Here it is:

Here’s a puzzle to rattle the brain,

A brand new mystery to solve again.

I always run but never walk,

I often murmur, never talk.

I have a bed but never sleep,

I have a mouth but never eat.”

What am I??

Send your answers to tulikabooks@gmail.com.

They *heart* mangoes

"The illustrations are lovely and playful and the choice and number of words on each page make it easy for a 5 year old to read. The word birds explain the region specific words beautifully and the imagery of the word bird pecking at the mango or dragging the mango is just about perfect," says Riti Kaunteya. Read the rest of her post on The Sweetest Mango.

"Its a book of lovely mangoes, beautiful scenes, a great friendship and of a storyline which will trigger your memories whether you have been brought up in Udipi, Baroda or Bombay" says Rakhee. Read the rest of her post here.

"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," says Sandhya in her review.

Read also her interview with writer Malavika Shetty to find out why she's mundappa mad and lots more.

I *Heart* Mangoes blogathon: Winners and a round-up!

The mango blogathon has come to an end. In case you missed writer Malavika Shetty's write-up on her mango story, here it is. Not to forget Ajanta Guhathakurta's delightful illustrations which have featured across the posts.

The book, ladies and gentleman, has arrived and it looks delicious. You can place your orders on our website. Like all our picture books, it's available in nine languages: English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali.

Vijaysree Venkatraman (read her entry here), bloggers Sandhya, R's Mom and Itchingtowrite are the winners of this blogathon and they will receive a free copy of The Sweetest Mango.:)

Congratulations!

All participants are entitled to a special discount: you can buy the book (Rs.135) for Rs.100. (Sweet deal, no?) Write to us at tulikabooks@vsnl.com to avail the offer.

We did a round-up of some entries earlier. Here's the second lot, for those who want to indulge in different mango moods:

"Summer vacations meant a lot of things to me as a child, but most of all, it meant Mangoes with a capital M," writes Sandhya in her post, Mango Memories. 

Fiddler on the Roof goes down her mango memory lane in Mango Diaries.

"...sometimes it made me wonder if the mangoes really tasted that good only because Appa is so perfect with the knife," says Padmashri in her post, Mangoes.

Varsha offers up a delightful recipe along with her mango memory in her post, Mango thieves.

"We would find stones, long sticks and bougainvillea stems long and strong enough to bring down even the most reluctant mango," writes Saudha in her post, Mango Season.

Then there's R's Mom's inspired mango post, aptly-titled Missing the Mango Mania. And finally, Shruti Rao's mysteriously titled From Darkness to Light. And Pinashpinash's Milkertainment.

This entry was a day late, but the refrain Mangoes, mangoes, mangoes... made us put it up with the rest.:)

We also received a couple of responses by email. This first is from R Akila:

Mango-the king of fruits does reminisce me of my childhood days. My summer holidays were mostly spent in karaikudi (my grandma's place)where all my cousins meet every year. The Mango orchard in the backyard was the place where we hang out. Climbing the mango tree was always fun because the winner is blessed with an extra mango."Thoratti" a long wooden stick with a hook was the equipment used to pluck the ripe ones. A Chettiar's garden is incomplete without this equipment. Sneaking into the "ukkuranam"(Chettinad term for store room)to taste the various mango recipes was my daily ritual. 

To list a few of my grandma's recipe "Maavathal,maavadu,avakkai oorugaa,thanneer Panthal ooruga". As I write I can feel my tongue tingling to taste all these mango stuffs. When I compare my childhood days with my kids,I really pity them for their life is too mechanical and cyber oriented.All they know about mango is that it's a yummy summer fruit which can be bought in fruit shops. Nowadays Mangoes from known sources are the best way to enjoy the fruit to avoid repenting later. I would always advice each individual to maintain a small garden in their houses and grow the fruits and vegetables the organic way, to get rid of the health hazards caused by the fertilizers.

And here's a poem about the mango season from Srividhya Venkat:

Summer is here!  Summer is here!

What would you like to do?

When summer is here, holidays appear

There is fun to last all day through.

Waking up late and lazing in bed,

Playing with friends at will,

Swimming and tennis keep the fun ahead.

But with one thing we never get our fill.

And that is the king who makes us weak,

We never get enough of him,

Different colours and varieties we seek,

King Mango is our whim.

Sometimes sour, sometimes sweet,

Sometimes orange, sometimes green,

Eat them all – Oh! What a treat!

Gives us pleasure we’ve never foreseen.

With a mango, there’s plenty to do

Sweet or spicy – you make your choice

Milkshake, barfi, ice-cream, fondue

Or pickle, sambar, chutney –whatever you rejoice!

So surrender to the King once again,

Let your taste buds enjoy

When summer is over, King Mango will disappear,

So go on – enjoy mangoes- don’t be coy!

Thank you everyone, for participating!

The Sweetest Mango

There's been an great response to the mango blogathon – thanks for participating! The blogathon closed yesterday and on Thursday, we will be putting up a post rounding up responses we've got. On Friday, we will announce the selected participants who will receive copies of the book, The Sweetest Mango, written by Malavika Shetty and illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta.

Today, we have a very special post from writer Malavika Shetty on her mango memories:

The mango, for me, epitomizes the tastes, textures, smells, and colours of childhood summers. It reminds me of hot afternoons sitting under the cool shade of mango trees sucking on the sweet, juicy mangoes that I had just plucked off the trees in my village in Karnataka. It reminds me of the summer holidays and of eating mangoes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in between because there was no school to go to the next morning and only the rhythm of the long summer days to follow. The fruit brings back to me memories of hot, sticky days when the colour of mango juice was a semi-permanent stain around my mouth. It reminds me of the look on my grandmother’s face when I came home each day from my mango adventures with my clothes streaked with mango juice.

The fruit is also intertwined with my summers in Bombay – the last few days of school, when the excitement of the coming holidays was in the air, and the aam papad wallah did brisk business just outside the school walls. The few saved-up coins I used to buy the tiny layered aam papad rectangles was money well spent as I swung on the gate of my apartment building with my friends after school sharing and savouring the sweet-tangy concoction.

The fruit reminds me of the colours and crowds at the weddings in city, during the wedding season, where mango leaves festooned the wedding halls and aamras was the eagerly-awaited delicacy at the end of a heavy meal. I remember eating spoonful after spoonful of the thick, sweet mango pulp flavoured with cardamom, until I could eat no more.

Even now, living in a different place, where mangoes are rare and the ones that I find just do not taste the same, I find myself trying to recreate the smells and tastes of childhood summers. I make mango shakes with vanilla ice cream, I eat pizzas with mango toppings, I enjoy mango lassis made out of canned mango pulp, and I book my tickets to go as soon as I can to where the mangoes of my childhood still hang invitingly from lush trees.


Malavika Shetty

I *Heart* Mangoes - The Stories So Far

We’ve got some Aamazing responses to the I *Heart* Mangoes blogathon so far!

In Mango Memories, Riti Kaunteya a.k.a Mamma of Twins tells us about hot summers in her grandfather’s mango orchard in Patna, and days that “began with Aam and ended with Aam.”

In An Aam Story, Arthi Anand a.k.a Artnavy writes about sitting in her garden in Vijaywada among her mother’s marigolds and spinach and planting mango seeds. 

“It did take me a while to get to the bottom of this fruit, but I'm glad I did,” says Malvika Tewari, in Meri bhi Keri, in which she talks about how she grew to love the much-coveted kaccha keri which grew in her school grounds in Navrachana, Baroda.

Vijaysree Venkatraman sent us this write-up about her summer vacations in Madurai and mangoes that weren't delicious at all:

Amnesiac Monkeys

My grandparents lived in Madurai and we visited them every summer. In the afternoons, I kept my ears open for monkeys. It was as good a way as any to pass time in this place. A distant siren would signal the break for the textile factory and shortly after my uncle would be home for lunch. After he left, the kitchen would shut down briefly. My aunt would roll out the mat and lie down for a while. When I heard that distinct clatter on the asbestos roof of the bathroom, I would always rush to the window. A familiar drama played out each time with minor variations.

They are there! On the roof of the backyard bathroom, the monkeys make their unhurried progress toward the mango tree’s shading canopy. Like a parrot’s beak its green mangoes curve into a red-tinted tip. Even when the flesh ripens to gold within, the skin stays green. Despite the poetic name, the kilimukku, the fruit is a bitter disappointment to my grandmother.

The fruits of this particular tree are stringy and tart and my grandmother has to buy mangoes in the market just like everyone else who doesn’t have a big tree in their backyard. Its delicate brownish blossoms waft to the open tank below and scent the bathwater. Grandmother doesn’t have the heart to have the tree cut down but complains about it at every chance.

The trusty Chetak is parked in the open shed. The two dogs are tied in the corner, too hot to care about anything. The postman came to the gate a few minutes ago. They did not even bark at him. One of the monkeys has reached the scooter and is making a grab at the side-view mirror, which is glinting in the sun. The dogs look on bemused.

Then this monkey joins the group for the feast. Expert but forgetful tasters, they chuck the mangoes with disdain after a few sample nibbles. The pulpy mass rolls down the roof with a muffled clatter and lands with a plop near the shed. The monkeys seem to be aiming the fruits at the dogs. Unable to take the impudence of the intruders, Caesar, the younger one, howls his head off.

Aunt goes charging into the din. The monkeys don’t look worried at the sight of her long bamboo stick. They confer and then make a jaunty exit as if they have much tastier groves to raid. I can believe that. I wonder why they come here in the first place. Surely, they can’t be as amnesiac as all that! 

Perhaps, they were as bored as I was and enjoyed a bit of drama in the afternoon. 

And Joysree Das sent us this interesting folktale about How Mangoes First Came to India:

Once upon a time there were no mangoes in India. There was not even a single mango tree. Mangoes were only found in Srilanka and that also in the garden of Ravana, the demon king.

When Ravana stole away Sita from her cottage in the Panchavati forest, he kept her in his beautiful orchard called Ashokban where there were many mango trees.Sita sat under a mango tree and wept. She only ate a few fruits that dropped from the tree when ripe, and never tasted anything else.

When Rama won the battle against Ravana and killed him and took possession of his kingdom, his monkey soldiers entered Ashokaban, and feasted themselves on the ripe mango fruits, which they had never tasted before. They threw the half eaten mangoes and the ripe mangoes into the sea, which floated and reached the coast of India. Along the sea coast mango trees grew up, and gradually mango plants were taken to other places of India.

This is how mango came to India. We have to thank the monkey soldiers of Rama for it, whenever we taste the juicy fruit.

Have a mango story you want to share? Read our first post to know what we're looking for and get started! The blogathon closes on Monday, 21st May 2012.

I *Heart* Mangoes: A Tulika Summer Blogathon

Aam admirers, the I *Heart* Mangoes blogathon is here! 

Does your heart beat for the golden Alphonso, the blue-tinged Neelam, the red-green Mulgoa and the much-loved Banganapalli? Or does a rarer, lesser-known variety make you weak at the knees? Do you have a mangnificent recipe for mango barfi? Or an under-the-mango-tree memory (or conspiracy!) that you'd like to share?

Here's what you have to do: 

Put up your mango story on your blog. If you don't have a blog, you can write to us at tulikabooks@gmail.com with the subject I *Heart* Mangoes. We'll put it up on the Tulika blog.

Your piece can be short, long, sweet or spicy. It can be a trip down memory lane, an interesting piece of family lore or forgotten local history – all involving mangoes, of course. What?! You have a story and a recipe?? Bingo :) It can even be a little folktale you've heard. (But don't be lazy, ok. Means, if you thought Mango myth = Ganesh x 3 super slow jogs around parents and 1 irritated sibling on peacock, think again.)

Post pictures if you can. Add fun details. And (this is important) send us the link to your blogpost. You can paste it in the comments section at the end of this post or send us an email with the link.

End of the fortnight, we'll collect interesting responses and post samplings with links to original posts/publish other responses received via mail.

Selected participants will win copies of the forthcoming wordbird picture book, The Sweetest Mango, written by Malavika Shetty and illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta.


That's it. Let's roll with the mangas!