Little i jumps out of the computer to play with her friends, Aditi, Beautiful Ele the Beautiful elephant, Monkeyji and Siril, the ant. But find they are too busy, either reading or painting or pondering over words. Little i devises an ingenious plan to get them to pay attention, and as she does so, the reader is ushered into a world of letters, vowels and striking colours. The book launch was held at Atta Galatta, recently.
Suniti’s stories for children are as entertaining as they are educative.
They really make you think, children and adults alike. In an email interview, Suniti explains: “As you know, wanting children to think for themselves and to ask questions is different from telling them what to think. Also my primary aim is not didactic; I want people – including children – to enjoy what I write. So when reading Little i or listening to it, I would like children to enjoy the fun Little i has with letters, especially vowels and to have some fun with letters and words themselves. I suppose I want them to think, ‘What if such and such...’
Little i first appeared in Beautiful and the Cyberspace Runaway , one of the books in Suniti’s well-known Aditi Adventure Series . “She’s a computer application who escapes from the computer of the chap who thinks he invented her and takes refuge in Beautiful’s ear, that’s Beautiful Ele the Beautiful Elephant. So in that sense, Little i is pretty recent, even modern, but she has a number of literary relatives, for example, imps, gremlins, milk stealing goblins, will o’ wisps and other naughty, fun loving creatures. She also has one important mathematical relative – the square root of minus one. Like Little i, though it may not exist, it can be imagined. That’s why she’s called Little i (i is the symbol for the square root of minus one. It’s an imaginary number),” says Suniti, a noted writer, poet and fabulist, one of her most well-known books being, Feminist Fables .
When asked how the idea for Little i came to her, Suniti says: “As for how she entered my head – I don’t know. Stepped out of cyberspace?” The other characters are equally special.
“Aditi, a happy and sensitive little girl, is also a fighter if a fight is necessary. Her friends are Siril the ant, Beautiful Ele the Beautiful Elephant and Monkeyji. Siril loves maps and long words and believes in being as logical as possible. Beautiful is immensely strong and warm hearted, but she can be muddle headed and impetuous. Monkeyji is quite old and spends a lot of her time meditating, but she too is willing to get involved in an adventure when necessary. Together they have various adventures and solve a great many problems.” In the course of their adventures they also meet a great many strange creatures-some even stranger than Little i – such as the Sybil and Grendel and Grendel’s Mum and The Changeling, and Shemeek and many others.”
The stunning, life-like illustrations have been done by Sayan Mukherjee, a Bangalore-based advertising professional. “Tulika had approached me to do the illustrations for Little i. I use a lot of vibrant colours, especially for children’s books. So there is a bluish monkey and purple elephant, which is something you won’t usually see. I have also played with typography.”
Little i is a Tulika publication, for five years and above. It is priced at Rs. 160 and is available in nine languages, including English.
