“I don’t know why we have not told these stories before,” muses Shobha Viswanath, creative director and co-founder of children’s publishers, Karadi Tales. Continuing their aim of bringing “Indian stories to Indian children”, their new imprint, Minmini Reads, has brought out five books in collaboration with People’s Archives of Rural India (PARI). The stories are inspired by news reports filed by journalists for the online journal.
“Urban children need to read stories that don’t reflect just their lives and milieu, but that of others starkly different from their own,” she says. In author Aparna Karthikeyan’s No Nonsense Nandini , Vishaka George’s House of Uncommons , Subuhi Jiwani’s No Ticket Will Travel , Nivedha Ganesh’s The Big Splash and Priti David’s Coming Home , young readers will do just that. “These are stories about real people and real lives, not dreamed up,” P Sainath, senior journalist and founder of PARI, says, adding that he hopes children and parents alike will find the books a gentle introduction to the larger reality of India.
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Tales from all over
The series, aimed at middle-schoolers between the ages of 10 and 15, is particularly compelling in these times. After all, urban India only sat up to take notice when images of thousands of hungry and exhausted migrant labourers walking back home were beamed into their living rooms during the early days of the pandemic.
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The books, written in simple English, are hard to put down. The Big Splash tells the story of Dhivya, the daughter of a cotton farmer who swims like a fish despite having a deformed arm. Follow her journey to the Paralympics, as she learns lessons on controlling her temper and keeping friends. In No Nonsense Nandhini, a woman farmer (and single mum) throws on a shirt over her nightie, goes against patriarchal opinions, and dares to grow sampangi ( champak ) flowers instead of paddy on her land. The covers are beautifully illustrated by Tanvi Parulkar a current student at the National Institute of Design.
Nandita Das, who launched the books on October 31, lauds the series, pointing out that rural lives and the realities of a diverse people are vanishing from our collective consciousness. “This ‘other’ India rarely finds mention in newspapers or television broadcasts,” she says. With plans for the books to be translated into Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu, Viswanath hopes that they will be well received. “But whether there is a market for them or not, these stories have to be told,” she concludes.
Meet the characters
No Ticket Will Travel follows six labourers travelling from Andhra Pradesh to Kerala to find a livelihood. It is a peep into the hearts and minds of migrants, one of whom turns to poetry for solace.
In The House of Uncommons , 13-year-old Krishnan (who has lost his mother to HIV and carries the virus himself) is homesick, angry and desperately unhappy. He finds a brave new world where he falls in love with running, makes new friends, and finds acceptance.
In the midst of desperation, there is a gleam of hope in Coming Home . The children of Sittilingi Valley attempt to build their own school to bring back their young people from the cities.
On karaditales.com at ₹200 each and the set of five at ₹800.