For author Khyrunnisa A, inspiration comes in many forms. It could be a teenager who wanted a crocodile as a pet, a leaf blower in the neighbourhood or a friend’s son who reared rabbits. That ability to turn commonplace incidents into engaging stories is evident in The Crocodile Who Ate Butter Chicken for Breakfast and Other Stories (published by Red Panda), her new collection of stories for children. It has crocodiles, cats, koalas, squirrels, frogs and flies coming alive in 20 stories. As she anthropomorphizes the characters, the innate humour she weaves in is not lost even in the ingenious plots of some of the tales.
“I usually work on my plots and stories while I am in the kitchen or washing up. It is easy to find a subject for a story but the resolution of a tale is not always easy,” she says, over phone from her house in Thiruvananthapuram.
The award-winning children’s author says that since she is writing for children, she tries to ensure that the stories have a happy ending and are not gory, although she does not shy away from talking about carnivores feasting on their prey or a butter chicken-loving crocodile. Many of the stories in the book had appeared in the children’s magazine Dimdima .
Khyrunnisa explains that while some of her stories were inspired by real-life incidents, even those required imagination and creativity to turn them interesting. For instance, the story of the crocodile that came home was based on an incident that her son’s friend had told her.
“He told me that one of his friends kept hankering for a crocodile as a pet and for a birthday, he was actually gifted a baby crocodile in a basket. Although he tried to keep it hidden in his bedroom, he realised that crocs are not all that easy to domesticate or look after at home. Unlike the croc in my story that chased a coconut plucker, this croc was sent packing before any such thing happened,” she says, laughing.
The Crocodile Who Ate Butter Chicken for Breakfast and Other Stories by Khyrunnisa A
In some cases, it was a news item that caught her attention. She would file it away in her memory and then draw upon it to spin a story around it. If ‘Zebra Crossing’, a tale of a utopia in trouble, is a delightful play on words, ‘The Koala Magic’ is for all those who have kept alive the Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame) in them. The author has recreated that age of innocence when children could have lengthy conversations with their favourite toys and go on imaginary adventures as well. About 10 of the stories in the collection are written from the point of the view of the animals, while 10 are narrated by people.
Khyrunnisa, a former lecturer of English at All Saints’ College in Thiruvananthapuram, has always expressed her concern about falling standards in education and how the syllabus for students of literature has been watered down in many ways. Her indignation at that has found expression in the story ‘When Literature Returned to Spear’s Academy’. ‘O Deer’ emphasises the importance of education.
With illustrations by Meenakshi Iyer, the book is meant for children between the age of nine and 14.
This is the author’s second collection of stories revolving around animals. Khyrunnisa’s earlier book Lizard of Oz , published by Scholastic, was also a collection of stories based on the animal world.
Creator of the popular Butterfinger series, the writer says that she is busy at work on her next novel on the lovable, bumbling hero of her books who always saves the day with his ingenious and unorthodox methods.
