When Anushka Ravishankar, award-winning children's author, is asked what she writes, she replies, in complete honesty, “Nonsense.” And most often, the response is a placating “Come now, don't be so modest! I'm sure you write wonderfully!”
Put it down as one of the perils of being a nonsense writer, in a country where it isn't even recognised as a genre.
It's refreshing that someone is able to unabashedly admit that her books are not intended as moral science textbooks, will not tell you to brush twice daily, or hold the Key to a Successful Life.
So is meeting someone who feels the best compliment she's received is a mother calling up to yell, “I'm thoroughly sick of you! Your books are coming out of my ears!”, because her son insisted on being read to from her books every single night.
It seems ironic that a Math graduate would go on to write nonsense verse. “If you learn analytical writing and structured narratives, then you also learn how to mess with it. I think understanding logic is what helps me subvert it,” she said.
Surprisingly, for someone who has become one of the strongest voices in modern children's literature, writing didn't form an integral part of her early life. “But, of course, there was always that phase of writing terrible poetry that everybody seems to go through — the ‘Oh! I cannot find my book; wherever I look' variety,” she laughs.
A wanderlusting tiger who escapes up a tree, frightened out of his wits by a goat, was her first protagonist. “Now what? Send him to the zoo? Stick him up with glue? Paint him an electric blue?” wonder the villagers who've caught him, in Tiger on a Tree . The year was 1997. The awards began coming almost instantaneously, and she went on to do several books for Tara Publishing, as editor. “These books are hard to do now, because, now, the norm is that the book-movie-videogame comes as a package,” she shakes her head.
The children's publisher Scholastic India, which she then joined as editor in Delhi, used to bring out brochures of books that went directly to children in schools, for them to choose. “It was excellent, because the feedback was direct.” But the result was disheartening — only educational or activity-based books were picked up. “It told us a lot about the way reading is viewed in India. It also ties up with what our writers want; most of them want to write heavy, ‘real' books.”
There has been one recurring complaint, though — aren't most contemporary children's books a tad overpriced? “Look, a few decades ago, the National Book Trust and the Children's Book Trust heavily subsidised their books. So, when hand-made books began to charge more, nobody could understand why.” But yes, most of these publishers are releasing their handmade titles as paperbacks, realising that it is the only way most children will get a chance to read them.
“We also have no awards for children's literature; nobody gets to know about them, and they remain unrecognised. We're trying to institute an award, and a Guide to Indian Children's Literature is also on the cards, so that people know what is available, and where.”
Then, there is what she calls the “Pink Book Syndrome”. It started when Scholastic realised that their books with pink covers were selling in huge numbers. “These were the usually the how-to-decorate-your-room-with-pretty-butterflies books. Gendering starts so early in a child's life, with blues and pinks, cars and flowers. This seeps into their reading. It's ridiculous!”
And, we're surrounded by the master of gendering — Walt Disney himself. “And, their stories are so severely structured — and the same structure at that. It is hard to write without clichés.”
She's tired of being asked what the “point” of these books is. “These are for people who aren't looking for that point. Is that so hard to grasp?”
Apparently, it is. This could be why she has turned to children's writing, because they have none of the presuppositions about stories that adults have. “Their minds are freer, their imaginations more diverse.” And besides, “I think you need a certain sense for nonsense.”
In fact, she wrote the introduction to The Tenth Rasa in nonsense as well, intended to mean absolutely nothing. “So, I was horrified when I began to meet several people who thought it was an academic piece of writing, and even quoted from it! It's like you could write anything, and pass it off as literature.”
She recently gave up her post with Scholastic. When you're a children's writer, there's another thing one keeps coming up against — what do your books teach? She smiles. “I hope my books don't teach a single thing!”
