She is nine-years old. She likes to eat and she likes stories too, exclaimed Deepika Arwind, a Bengaluru-based writer and theatre practitioner.
On Thursday morning, she was introducing Sarayu, a fictional character, to the 30 schoolchildren in Room No. 26 of Lycee Francaise, an international French school in Puducherry.
After introducing Sarayu, Ms. Arwind paused for a second and questioned: “What is a creature?”
Replies poured in: “It is a living being,” “a dog,” “a monster.”
While acknowledging the responses with a nod, she prompted the children to come up with more answers, as French illustrator Alan Mets stood facing the board with a white paper fixed on it.
He sketched the eyes of Sarayu first, then her face. When Ms. Arwind continued narrating the story describing the creature in her story, he drew the creature too.
When he moved away from the board, children could see an illustration of Sarayu signing and the creature sitting on a tree. Following this, Ms.Arwind instructed the students to draw their imaginative creature.
Both Deepika Arwind and Alan Mets were in Puducherry as part of Bonjour India programme ‘Rock-Paper-Scissors’ to conduct a workshop for children between the age group of 6 to 10 years.
After creating a cross-cultural book for children using basic arts and crafts – Sarayu's Creature, they are touring south India to create a book of 50 completely weird, wild, amazing creatures drawn by children that would be published in France and India.
Interacting with The Hindu , Ms.Arwind said that she met a French playwright Karin Serres during a playwright intensive programme in Washington DC.
“Within a few months after the programme, she introduced me to Chloe Bacqueriaux of Le Cosmographe publishing house in France. When I interacted with her, she told me about Alan Mets. After I wrote the story, Alan began illustration work on a translated text. The protagonist in my story is a girl and it was challenging for the illustrator as it was set in the Indian context,” she said.
Illustrated works
Ms.Bacqueriaux added Le Cosmographe is a new international and multicultural publishing house dedicated to children’s books that offers illustrated fictional works that develops a child’s sense of discovery and imagination.
“We encourage collaboration between an author and an illustrator from different cultures and countries enabling the possibility for children to vastly expand their imagination. I am here to meet a few Indian publishing houses to get this work printed here,” she said.
