Archives: literature

Writer Write-Up: Olivier Sanjay Lafont

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date December 22, 2020
No Comments on Writer Write-Up: Olivier Sanjay Lafont

Olivier Sanjay Lafont is an acclaimed author, screenplay writer and actor, with a very impressive body of work that appeals to all ages. You might also remember him from his big-screen outings in movies like 3 Idiots and Guzaarish. Originally from France, Olivier grew up in India and loves the country, something that shines through his work. His latest work is a fantastical piece of fiction for kids called ‘Oop & Lila: Lost in the Scarabean Sea’.

Talking about the idea for his stories, Olivier said,

“All stories are, in my mind, a seamless connection between fiction for kids and adults. Everything comes naturally. When I write, I am also enacting the story in my mind. ‘Oop and Lila’ has been written very cinematically.”

Having written fiction majorly, the author feels that fantasy is very important as it integrates adventure, fun and discovery. It aids in expanding imagination.

“It gave a whole new internal dimension to my life as a kid,” Olivier added.

He also believes that the quest is an essential part of fantasy writing as it helps to mirror every reader’s day-to-day life from a brand new angle. It shows how every reader views a particular situation or thing differently.

Olivier has a long-standing bond with Amar Chitra Katha books.

“When I was seven years old, my family moved from France to Delhi and I didn’t speak English or Hindi. I was put into an English medium school. The culture in Delhi was so different than that in France and I also had to overcome the language barrier. We were living in the French embassy. Among the few books in the guest house, there were a couple of Amar Chitra Katha comics. In France, there is a huge comic subculture that we call bandes dessineés. Amar Chitra Katha Comics made me feel like this is something I know and I can access. The comics gave me an introduction to the people here, their lives, and their culture. That was how I connected with Indian culture.”

Listen to hear more from Olivier and hear him read an excerpt from his book ‘Oop & Lila: Lost in the Scarabean Sea’ in the video above.

#ACKandFriends is an online talk show by our Amar Chitra Katha editorial team, where we connect with India’s top children’s authors and give audiences a sneak peek into the creative process behind writing books for kids. Watch Season 1: Click here

Stay tuned for Season 2 coming soon.

Krishna Speaks #8

Offering every action you do to the lord creates a sense of consciousness in everything. Dedicating oneself to the highest power refrains one from doing any kind of sinful act.

5 Must-Reads for Eco-Warriors

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date December 15, 2020
No Comments on 5 Must-Reads for Eco-Warriors

Covers: Amazon | Design: ACK Design Team

We keep hearing more and more alarming news about climate change and its impact on our environment. There are some authors out there who have made it a point to use their works as a medium for change. Here is a list of five must-read titles for budding eco-warriors!

Trash: On Ragpicker Children and Recycling

Based on the real-life experiences of street children in Chennai, Trash is a unique combination of fiction and facts. The story revolves around Velu, a runaway village child, who ends up as a ragpicker in a big city. While he makes ends meet, he must also face the harsh realities of life on the streets. ‘Trash’ breaks down complex issues such as child labour and rag-picking into much simpler terms and gets its readers to question their everyday habits and understand that which is invisible, collateral damage to their waste. The story is accompanied by facts and arguments, interlinking complex issues that collectively hamper society’s growth.

The book is written by Gita Wolf, Anushka Ravishankar, and Orijit Sen. It evolved from a series of workshops they conducted with ragpicker children.

The Hungry Tide

Written by Amitav Ghosh, the story of ‘The Hungry Tide’ is based in the Bay of Bengal that is home to the Sundarbans, a collection of tiny islands linked by rivers. For settlers there, life is extremely precarious. Attacks by deadly tigers and other animals are fairly common. Unrest and eviction from home are constant threats. Tidal floods tend to rise and surge over the land without any prior warning. This water only brings with it utmost disaster and devastation.

The novel is narrated from two different perspectives; First from Piya’s perspective who is an American scientist researching river dolphins, and second from Kanai’s perspective who is a New Delhi translator on a trip to see his aunt. The Marichjhapi massacre of 1978-79 forms a backdrop for some parts of the novel, which explores topics like environmentalism and humanism, especially when they come into a conflict of interest with each other.

No Room for a Leopard

Narrated by the master storyteller himself, Ruskin Bond; ‘No Room for a Leopard’ first appeared in ‘A Bond with the Mountains’ in 1998. The story is about a group of hunters who set out to kill a very trusting leopard. Leopard skins are a rare artefact that sells for an exorbitant amount of money and hence is illegally traded due to the ban on its export. Due to such unscrupulous acts, the leopard, like many other members of the cat family, is nearing extinction in India. While the story is engaging, it also helps to understand the norms of the society in which we live, with many life lessons skillfully woven into the plot.

The Six Spellmakers of Dorabji Street

‘The Six Spellmakers of Dorabji Street’ by Shabnam Minwalla is set in a lazy gully in Mumbai. The story revolves around a young girl, Nivi, who moves to the gully with her family and soon befriends other children. Their favourite pastime is sitting in a large bimbli tree and watching the neighbors’ comings and goings. However, conflict arises when an individual from the neighbourhood declares that the children under the tree are troublesome and starts a campaign to chop it down. Now it’s up to Nivi and her friends to save their beloved tree. The book is a perfect mixture of entertainment and moral messaging. Magic can happen anywhere is perhaps the biggest takeaway of this story. Svabhu Kolhi’s black and white illustrations magnify the magical aspects of the story.

A Cloud Called Bhura

Written by Bijal Vaccharajani, ‘A Cloud Called Bhura’ explores climate change and the havoc it can create, as well as themes like friendship, trust, and community. The story is about four youngsters who are on a journey to decode a deadly cloud called Bhura that has apparently taken over Mumbai’s skyline. Bhura Cloudus, as the media calls it, contains noxious gases, causes scalding acid rain, makes birds flee the city, and suffocates every living thing in its path. It’s now up to the tweens to solve the problem of this gloomy cumulus nimbus! The book is filled with beautiful illustrations and the situations and characters are very relatable

The Story of the Silk Cotton Tree

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date December 15, 2020
No Comments on The Story of the Silk Cotton Tree

According to one version of Mahabharata, Bheeshma once narrated the story of a proud tree to Yudhishthira to teach him the importance of humility.

A long time ago, the silk cotton tree stood tall on the slopes of the Himalayas. It was extremely alluring. One day as sage Narada passed by the tree, he stopped to admire its size. He said,

“O Silk Tree, how mighty you are! Even the powerful storm cannot move your branches.”

Filled with pride, the haughty tree boomed out loudly.

“That’s because the storm is my servant.”

Now sage Narada was known for being a bit of a gossip, and told Vayu, the wind god, exactly what the proud tree had told him. Vayu was furious and went thundering off to see the tree himself. When he got there, he started screaming at the tree!

“Do you know why I do not blow on you? When Lord Brahma was creating the world, he stopped to rest on one of your branches. It is out of respect for him that I keep still, but I think it is time I teach you a lesson.”

An enraged Vayu then worked himself into a great storm and blew so hard that the silk cotton tree lost all its leaves and flowers at once! That was the price the tree had to pay for his arrogance.

India’s Many Superstitions

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date November 30, 2020
No Comments on India’s Many Superstitions

By Harini Gopalswami Srinivasan

What is a superstition? It is a blind belief that some happening, like seeing an elephant at the start of a journey, or action, like breaking a mirror, brings good or bad luck. Indians, like people everywhere across the world, have always had many superstitions.

Many superstitions are related to birds and animals. A crow cawing near the house meant an imminent arrival of guests!

The position of the sun, moon, stars and planets are also believed to predict future events. The Ramayana is full of omens like meteors falling, jackals howling, or deers crossing one’s path from the left. The jackals signified bad luck while the deers meant good fortune. Other Puranic texts were also full of such beliefs.

Some superstitions originated from the fear of the unknown. The invention of electricity banished a lot of such fears, especially about ghosts and other supernatural beings, stemming from the shadows cast by firelight and dim lamps.

Other superstitions were based on healthy practices. For example, housewives used to make rangoli designs with rice flour on their doorsteps to provide food for ants and keep them busy outside the house. Water was sprinkled around the plate or leaf, before a meal, to keep ants away. Similarly, it was believed to be dangerous to loiter under trees after dark. We know now that this is because trees release a large percentage of carbon dioxide at night. It was bad luck to ask someone where they are going just when they are hurrying out. The obvious explanation is that it would distract the person and he or she could trip on something and fall.

5 Must Reads By Rudyard Kipling

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date November 23, 2020
No Comments on 5 Must Reads By Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was a poet, a journalist and a novelist. Born in India, the country’s influence can be seen in several of his works. Kipling gained fame due to his iconic work, The Jungle Book. However, his body of work goes far beyond the tales of Mowgli, and comprise some of the most notable pieces of modern literature, such as Kim, If-, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, The Elephant’s Child, and many more.

The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book is a collection of seven short stories written by Kipling at the end of the 19th century. Much of the book focuses on Mowgli, a boy who grows up in one of the India’s many jungles where he is raised by a wolf called Raksha.

Mowgli becomes a member of the Seeonee Wolf Pack, much to the chagrin of Sher Khan, a cruel tiger who hates man. He plots against the boy, eventually forcing Mowgli to go back to civilization when he grows up.

Mowgli briefly returns to the domain of man, but leaves after he learns that Sher Khan has been plotting against Akela. He defeats the tiger after a fierce battle, but realizes that the jungle will never truly be his home.

Captain Courageous

The story talks about Harvey Cheyne Jr, the spoilt 15 year old son of a millionaire railroad tycoon, who tumbles overboard from an ocean liner bound for Europe and is rescued by a group of a fisherman off the coast of Newfoundland. He tries to buy his way out by promising that his father would pay for his trip back, but is forced to work with the crew after he accuses the captain of stealing his money.

Thus begins the boy’s journey of transformation; under the supervision of a sturdy crew of fishermen, and with the assistance of Dan, the captain’s son, Harvey understands the true value of hard work. He learns to respect each and everyone and changes his outlook towards life. After his return, he goes to Stanford to complete his education and readies himself to take over his father’s business.

Kim

Kim is a 13-year-old orphan, the son of an Irish soldier and his homemaker wife who died in penury. Kim earns his living by begging and running small errands for Mahbub Ali, a horse trader and a local spy for the British on the streets of Lahore.

Due to his upbringing in India, he is so immersed in the local culture that few notice that he is a white kid. He carries with him a packet of documents from his father entrusted to him by an Indian woman who cared for him. Along the way, Kim befriends an aged Tibetan Lama, a monk who has embarked on a journey to free himself from the Wheel of Things by finding the legendary ‘River of the Arrow.’ An unconventional friendship develops between them, which continues even when Kim is sent away to a boarding school in Lucknow. Soon, Kim is recruited to be a spy by Mahbub Ali, while training to be a surveyor during his vacations. However, after schooling, he also sets out on his friend’s quest to find the fabled river.

How the Leopard got his Spots

Leopard used to live on the High Veldt, sand-coloured just like his surroundings. This made him very difficult to spot, which was really bad news for his prey, Giraffe and Zebra. The Ethiopian who lived there was also of a similar colour, and would hunt alongside the leopards.

One day, the weaker animals left the High Veldt to live in a forest and grew blotches, stripes, and other forms of camouflage and adapted to their surroundings. The Ethiopian and Leopard were hungry as their prey went away. Their search leads them to a wise babboon who directs them to the forest, but there, they are unable to spot Giraffe and Zebra, although they can smell them. The rest of the story sees them employing different ways to to track down their targets, eventually accepting that they would have to adapt to their new surroundings to survive.

The Elephant’s Child

This cute little story reimagine how the elephant got its trunk. The elephant originally had a short nose, flexible but useless for grasping things. One little elephant was insatiably inquisitive and curious, asking endless questions. One such question was what the Crocodile eats for dinner.

After running around the jungle and asking everyone he met the same question and not receiving any satisfactory answers, he finally comes face to face with a crocodile himself. When the little elephant repeats his question, he unfortunately finds himself to be the answer to the question! Don’t worry though, the little elephant does escape, albeit with a much longer olfactory organ than before. Featuring delightful characters, this book showcases Kipling’s amazing sense of whimsy.

Ravana Chhaya

Illustration: ACK Design Team

Ravana Chhaya or Ravana’s Shadow is a form of puppetry that belongs to Orissa and is based on the Vichitra Ramayana written by Vishwanath Khuntia, sometime between 1692 and 1720.

In this puppetry show, Ravana’s character is seen as larger than the others and assumes a dignified form. The story is dramatised in seven episodes, each representing one ‘kand’ of the Ramayana. 700 puppets are needed for the performance, which happens over a week with one episode played out each night. The puppets are 6 to 8 inches tall and their shadows are cast on a white sheet using the light from an oil lamp.

The Jackal And The Otters

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date November 13, 2020
No Comments on The Jackal And The Otters

Lack of trust in your dear ones is the fissure that allows an outsider seep in and break the bond or take complete advantage of it. Here is a story from the Jataka Tales that beautifully highlights this.

This story was adapted by Kamala Chandrakant and illustrated by Chandrakant Rane

Read more Jataka stories on the ACK Comics app, Kindle and other major platforms.

Writer Write-Up: Natasha Sharma

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date November 3, 2020
No Comments on Writer Write-Up: Natasha Sharma

Natasha Sharma is one of India’s most well-known children’s authors, with over a dozen books to her name. Her popular books, Icky, Yucky, Mucky and Kaka and Munni, have been performed at various literary events across the country. Her iconic History Mystery series has a huge reader base and is one of the most popular series in kids’ literature.

Natasha’s tryst with writing began long before her first book Icky, Yucky, Mucky. However, it was this book that made her realize how much she enjoyed the process of writing stories for kids. Interestingly, the book was initially written in verses but was elaborated to prose when the editor of Young Zubaan, Anita Roy, told her to do so. The book hilariously touches upon some of the bad habits that kids and adults easily fall into, including not-so-pleasant table manners.

However, she does feel strongly that children’s literature in India is not given its due and that’s primarily because of the issues of discoverability.

“Indian kid-lit is often relegated to one corner of a book store with a fused bulb and cartons of stock lying in front of it. That’s the ground reality. We lack good, well-established, well-known review spaces. To be able to get the word out, you need people in the mainstream, large media houses, bloggers… you need an entire village to build this. It’s not just about us selling a book, it’s about getting a child enthused about reading which is the ultimate goal for everyone.”

Her first book from the History Mystery series, Akbar and The Tricky Traitor, grew out of a writing workshop that Duckbill Books conducted in Mumbai. One of the exercises in the workshop was to pick a genre in which participants would have never considered writing a book. To add to the challenge, participants also had to pick a random object from a black bag and make it an essential part of the story. Natasha picked historical fiction… and a sock!

So how does Natasha balance historical settings with contemporary voices and make it sound exciting for kids?

“I do a ton of research and I don’t write anything until it’s over. The research could go on for as long as six months. I prepare notes and try to dig out some information that kids would never get to learn in their history textbooks. The fun bits of history are always left out for some reason. When I begin writing, I make sure I don’t force fit information into the story because it takes the joy away from storytelling and for the reader as well. Then I come up with interesting names for each of my character. “

Listen to hear more from Natasha and hear her read an excerpt from her book ‘Akbar and The Tricky Traitor’ in the video above.

Stay tuned for Season 2 coming soon.

Five Life Lessons By Chanakya

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date November 3, 2020
No Comments on Five Life Lessons By Chanakya

Acharya Chanakya, also known as Kautilya or Vishnu Gupta, was an Indian scholar, political advisor, economist, philosopher and teacher. Under his mentorship, Chandragupta Maurya, a commoner by birth, became the emperor of the Mauryan Empire. His popular works are Arthashastra and Neeti Shastra. These principles written by him between 370 BCE to 283 BCE hold true even today. While every era has witnessed some kind of transformation, Chanakya’s teachings have stood the test of time. Even today, his principles are taught to management students and business professionals as Chanakya Neeti. Here are a select few neetis that contain important life lessons, as told by the master himself.

Chanakya emphasises the importance of learning. Materialistic gains may be lost but the knowledge acquired through learning is never wasted. It is truly the gift that keeps on giving. It is never too early to start learning nor is it ever too late. So start now!

Truth triumphs all. It stands bare, free, and fearless. It is easy to create a mountain of lies, but it is impossible to bear its weight for long. On the crossroads of life, choose the right path and always speak the truth. Truth gives you the power to withstand every challenge.

Here, Chanakya beautifully emphasizes the importance of time. You cannot race against time, neither will time wait for anyone. Thus, it is essential to make the most of what you have and what you can do when you have the luxury of time. Everything falls in place with time. Never judge or criticise yourself comparing your pace with someone else’s. Each of us operate on different clocks after all. You will reap what you sow only when the time is right for you.

It is easy to judge yourself through the eyes of others. This holds true even more so today in the digital world we live in. People determine their self-worth by the number of followers on their social handles and the number of likes their posts get. We easily give in and believe what the world thinks of us. We allow people, most of whom we consider our friends and relatives, to use us like objects. Here, the master philosopher reminds us that those who come to you only to get something out of you are not your friends anyway. If you don’t respect yourself, how will others respect you?

Learn one good thing from each person. Often our differences make us blind towards the positives of a person. We tend to see only the part of their personality which we dislike. However, all of us are a mix of positive and negative. Thus, it is important to appreciate and absorb the good in each. We are all capable of becoming a little better by learning a little something from everyone we meet in our daily lives, no matter what their age, no matter what their station.