“You shouldn’t trouble black ants, Kuhu. They are god’s little ants,” says Kuhu’s mother, as she stops her from catching a plump, wiggly black ant. If this really is god’s little ant, Kuhu thinks, then it should lead her to where god lives? And so begins little Kuhu’s sprightly search for the answer, as she starts to tail the ant to the most unlikely of...
translation Devashish Makhija design Nina Sabnani We are tall tumbling treesWe are berries in the breezeWe are tigers, we are haresWe are rumbling rolling bears… The rhythm of the verse draws us beat by beat into a forest, lush and alive. But who are the ‘we’, so steeped in every part of it? Words and pictures sing together in this light and...
“What colour shall I be?” wonders the baby bird. And as her feathered friends hop forward one by one to claim their own colour as best, they pick out hues from across the country. Pink like Kutch flamingos, purple like fiery Naga chillies, red like the Satpura’s palash, black like Bhadra panthers… Vibrant palettes take us on a visual journey across India,...
Jokhu is the biggest, scariest, championest jokhini in the bamboo grove. She sits in a tree and makes everyone who goes by, from babies to bullies, shriek with fear. But one day, she meets a little girl whom she simply cannot scare. What will Jokhu do now? If she can’t be scary, then what can she be?Bold, dramatic pictures make the many demons from...
Where is Baba? Why is he not back yet? Jhupli is restless as evening sets in. Her father has gone into the dense jungle to gather honey and she is afraid. Because there are tigers in the forest. Because people sometimes go inside and never come out. Must Baba go in danger every day? Jhupli has an idea – honey boxes!Mood-filled pictures and text weave...
Fiercely fun, madly morose and prone to spontaneous combustion — this is Mayil Ganeshan at Not Yet Sixteen. Much like before. But edgier. Older and bolder, the unstoppable ‘Mayilwriter’ rants in rhyme, ponders in verse, and doodles in between. For every moment of clarity, there are others filled with anger, confusion and self-doubt. But Mayil keeps her...
A little boy runs excitedly in the darkness, lit only by the light of a bright, bright moon. He is going with his mother and baby brother to the millet fields. As his mother works, he tries to make the most of the moonlit night with his newfound friend, a stray dog, while his brother sleeps... It takes an exceptional writer like Perumal Murugan to...
A dog suddenly appears on a street one day and decides to stay. So now he needs to be given a name. But he is too scrawny to be Laddoo, not furry enough to be Fluffy, and too much of a scaredy-dog to be Rambo... What do they call this dog? A warm and funny vignette of a typical Indian street with assorted people – and a friendly stray!
Aaaachooo! Gajapati Kulapati catches a big big cold. Kalabalooosh! Gajapati Kulapati splashes into the pond. Gurrburrroooom! Oh no, Gajapati Kulapati has tummy trouble. Kalicha Kulicha! Gajapati Kulapati dances in muddy puddles. But who is Gajapati Kulapati? Where did he come from? With the same jaunty sounds, familiar faces, lilting text and...
Soori loves to draw and paint. But where he lives now with his mother is a rundown neighbourhood, unclean, unsafe and completely colourless! He wants to move away, but knows they can’t. He wishes that colours would rain down and brighten the buildings. A few days later, Soori finds himself amidst painters, paint cans and brushes! What’s going on?...
Asha’s first trip in her colourful auto every morning is to the flower market, where she buys a big bag of jasmine buds. Follow her through the week and through the city, as she picks up and drops off passengers at the railway station, the beach, the cricket stadium… stringing and selling jasmine all the way. Vibrant pictures liven up the route and offer...
