It all began with an owl in a banyan tree. Dancer, choreographer and author Anuradha Majumdar was walking down a tree-lined avenue in Pondicherry, wondering whether to take up an offer she’d just received to write for children, when the owl caught her eye. It held her gaze for a few moments, conveyed something to her, “not in words, of course!”, and turned its head away, almost as if to say, ‘Move along now; show over’. It wasn’t an owl Anuradha saw again, but she was left with the skeleton of a trilogy about three children on an adventure, the second part of which, titled Infinity Papers (Roli), was recently released at Amethyst.
Infinity Papers acquaints us once again us with the friends we’d made in ‘Island of Infinity’, Gautam, Marina and Tenzin, and their investigative parrot Spark. In the first book, siblings Gautam and Marina visit their grandfather in Kodaikanal, who receives threats over the telephone, the investigation of which leads the children into discovering the Island of Infinity, with, of course, the evil force of Dargate chasing them down before they can save the world. Infinity Papers takes the children on a quest for a blue stone that must be returned to a secret valley. From Chennai, to Kodaikanal, Bangalore, Delhi, Dharamsala and deep into the inner Himalayas, the adventure spans the length of India, and often Tibet.
Tibet was once home to Tenzin, who’s now settled among the Tibetan refugee community in Kodaikanal. Tenzin befriends Gautam and Marina on their adventures and is the source of much history and mythology woven into the book. “I never imagined my characters as generalised children. Each had a unique way of involving with the world around him or her. So the events of the Chinese invasion and Tibetan folklore, situate Tenzin, and his desire to return someday to his homeland,” says Anuradha. In Infinity Papers , too, Gautam remains preoccupied with taking litter of the streets and into garbage bins. Here, he fronts a clean-up campaign that Anuradha says reflects the numerous youth movements for a rubbish-free India.
Meanwhile, Marina represents the capability to dream. “It is only because of her ability that the children are able to find Infinity, and recognise it when they see it.”The Island of Infinity itself, draws from stories in traditional Asian cultures that speak of “the perfect place”, a place where consciousness has been made complete, and a place that steps beyond boundaries, histories, differences and recognises a unified humanity.
“This sense of the infinite is something that is so lacking in the world today, where intolerance rises and there’s no widening of people’s minds. I didn’t want there to be an esoteric sense of infinity though.
This search for beauty and freedom are real terms in the book, that, for instance, Gautam expresses in his vision for cleanliness, and Tenzin in his hope for return.” The idea of Infinity though, is countered by the community of people who block progress, symbolised here by the Dargate, an evil corporation that deals in arms. It takes the wisdom, honesty and the unprejudiced minds of children to unconventionally tackle this challenge.
Anuradha resists classifying her children’s works as fantastical writing. “It simply comes under the broad genre of fiction. I believe fiction should have a certain degree of fantasy because that’s exactly how the world is! There’s so much that we can’t explain; so much of the unexpected. Maybe whole islands don’t pop out of the blue, but it’s time we stretched the degree of what we call reality.”
As Anuradha reads excerpts from the Infinity Papers at Amethyst to rows of absorbed children, it’s evident that the Island of Infinity is as real to them as the room we’re in. The evening closes with the children drawing gemstones to fix onto a mural of the Island drawn by children from RainbowFish Studio.
“When will the next book come Anuradha akka?” asks a child. “Soon!” she answers. “I have put down a fishing hook for it, and there may even be a fourth one!”
