Her books are a rage among children but this time around, Khyrunnisa A is excited about her first book for adults, Tongue in Cheek, The Funny Side of Life. And there is a special reason too. The book — that’s a compilation of 51 articles she wrote as part of fortnightly column Inside View for The Hindu MetroPlus in Thiruvananthapuram — will be released by Parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor, who has launched each of her six books in the Butterfingers series in the last nine years.
“It is a happy feeling to know that he has read and enjoys all my books and has so far kept his promise of releasing my books,” says the unassuming English professor-turned-full-time writer, who was in the city recently to participate in the Madurai Children’s Literary Festival.
On September 1, she will sit in conversation with Tharoor and author-historian Manu S Pillai discussing the semi-autobiographical travails of an urban woman and her witty observations on day-to-day life. “It doesn’t matter whether I am writing for children or adults, humour comes naturally to me,” says Khyrunnisa. “I constantly search for the absurd in whatever I do and wherever I go,” she adds.
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Children, according to her, are “ both the easiest and the most difficult to please”. Her new book, The Lizard of Oz (Scholastic) with illustrations by Krishna Bala Shenoi, was launched in the city. Both her latest books fall under two different genres but cut across age groups in their appeal.
As someone who has had a ringside view of the evolution of children’s literature, Khyrunnisa believes this is the best phase for young readers in India. Often attending back-to-back lit fests and reading sessions, she says there are several authors writing on diverse subjects these days and with more publishers backing them, the volume of quality books has gone up. “To keep electronics addiction at bay, parents are buying more books for their children now than when I was a kid,” she says and is positive that books are here to stay. “They will always be read and treasured,” she says. The award winning author is a fun person to be with. She says she chose to write for children to bring a smile on their faces. “I think children’s authors are the most real and positive. They are grounded in a world of imagination, fantasy and creativity and can get children to read for pleasure.”
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Khyrunnisa counts P G Wodehouse, Roald Dahl, Bill Bryson, Ruskin Bond and R K Narayan among her favourites. She says she is humbled when children instinctively respond to her writings and tell her how much she inspires them.
The (mis)adventures of Butterfingers alias Amar Kishen, a teenager and his group of friends in school are a rage among children. Khyrunnisa says she first wrote Butterfingers as a story in 1996 and sent it as an entry for the annual all-India Tinkle short story competition for adult writers of children’s fiction. She won the second prize and from 1997 to 2003, she consecutively bagged the first prize at the competition. After retiring from the English Department of All Saints College, Thiruvananthapuram, she turned to full time writing and in 2010, turned the now iconic character Butterfingers into her first novella. The 70-page Howzzat Butterfingers was filled with the idiosyncrasies of a school student’s life. After her second Butterfingers novel in 2012, Khyrunnisa has penned one under the series each year from 2015.
With The Lizard of Oz , she has ensured the same organic humour and charm her young and adult readers expect of her. It features the story of a lizard and its various encounters after it inadvertently travels in a shoe box from Australia to a home in Mumbai that is averse to geckos, among a dozen other animal stories from their perspective. “When we talk about the animal kingdom, it’s always about lions, tigers, or peacocks. I wanted to bring some dignity to the smaller creatures such as termites, fireflies, mosquitoes, centipedes, ants and bees who are equally an important part of the ecosystem. I had to do lot of fact research before making them the protagonists in my stories,” she says.
While the book is quite funny, it also has literary content. “There is a character called Bookworm and another is named Aristotle and this is not without a reason,” says Khyrunnisa.
Khyrunnisa never fails to add punch to her writings even though her stories are often multi-layered and compel a child to think. “That is why I never talk down to them,” she says. “In my books I talk to children the way I talk to adults. Perhaps that is what appeals to them.”
(Published by Westland with illustrations by Priya Kuriyan, Tongue in Cheek, The Funny Side of Life will be released on September 1 in Thiruvananthapuram.)