The Story Quilt is a delightful collection of eight children’s stories. It includes translations from Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Punjabi and Sindhi. And adding to its charm are the beautiful illustrations that showcase the popular art style from each region.
Harshikaa Udasi who edited the book and has been a journalist for over 20 years says, 'I must've been in my teens when I first realised that my mother tongue was slowly fading into oblivion. Not in the Sindhi strongholds, definitely not, but this Bombay-bred, convent-educated girl didn't know how to speak my mother tongue fluently. My parents, who conversed freely in Sindhi, didn't know how to read or write the language. What would happen in future generations was getting pretty obvious. Was it an after-effect of the Partition? Were Sindhis so busy putting their fragmented lives together that holding on to their language was hardly on the radar?'
The Story Quilt started out as a single story idea in Sindhi that I proposed to Tina Narang (Publisher - HarperCollins Children's Books). She suggested we expand this to include other Indian languages that needed to be brought to children. And that’s how I embarked on this journey of bringing in children’s stories from languages that had few, if any at all, translations in English. With the illustrations, we wanted to give children a feel of the culture. In totality, the children would be reading a story from the region, learning about the author, delving into its culture and, I am keeping my fingers crossed here, getting motivated enough to read up more about each of them!'
Dr. Sherline Pimenta K who has illustrated the book says that like spoken language, visual language too has its own flavours. Sherline is the Master Storyteller at Kathanika and her passion is to explore how people make sense of the world around them. She says, 'I enjoy drawing and painting in different styles. If you look keenly at the illustrations that accompany the story, you will notice that every one of them is different in terms of drawing, colour scheme and composition. Each story is illustrated in a style inspired by a particular art form that has its roots or is related in some way to the region that the story originates from.'
As an author and illustrator, she uses stories and design to educate, inform and sensitize people towards various issues. She received her Master's in Communication Design and a Ph.D. in Visual Storytelling from IIT Bombay. She says, 'When I was asked by Harshikaa to illustrate the stories for this book in regional styles, I was very excited, for it would allow me to explore and study various illustration styles. I began by looking up the different styles from the region, the history behind it, the visual language. I went back and forth between the stories themselves and the art style to see if I could find a good match; a suitable style to do justice to the narrative. I then had to create and extend the visual vocabulary to illustrate the story. In some cases where the art style is still practiced and we have lots of examples in terms of visual references it was easy; in some cases where the art style is no longer practiced and I did not have many reference images, I had to construct the required figures. All in all it was a wonderful experience.'
Take a look at two stories from the book.
Ragho's Story
Savita who translated the story from Maithili says that the story brings in multiple imageries and a diverse terrain to children's imagination, which is essential to safeguard them from unidimensional and unilinear thought processes. Moreover, it is a story of sport - sport as a panacea to several ailments including isolation and sport as an agent of change especially for today's home-bound, gadget-stricken future generation. Ragho's Story was written by Padma Shri Dr. Ushakiran Khan who was born to Gandhian freedom fighters in North Bihar. She has always been attracted towards literature since childhood and has read everything from ancient to modern literature in Sanskrit, Pali, English and Hindi. She has written historical novels like Bhamati in her mother tongue Maithili and Sirjanhar in Hindi. Dr. Khan has been awarded innumerable times for her contribution to literature including the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Shri Award.
Maara's Mission
Deep in the villages of Hasunvanthe, Honnemaradu and Majina Kaanu in the Western Ghats lives a small tribe called Deewaru. People of this tribal community have a beautiful art form called Chittara, which adorns the walls of their huts. Chittara drawings are intricate patterns that represent auspicious ceremonies and rituals of life, symbolised in geometric patterns.
Maara's Mission was written by K.P. Poornachandra Tejasvi who was deeply connected to nature. It shows in his writings, which focused on the wonders of the natural world. In this story, Maara, the watchman of Tejasvi's farm, is a product of local, rural culture. A deeply superstitious old man, his irrational, yet effective methods of dealing with problems leave the rational-minded Tejasvi flummoxed, agitated and amused.
Anjana Nagabhushana who is a Mumbai based columnist says that her experience of reading Sri Poornachandra Tejasvi's writings has been enriching and rewarding. And that readers will enjoy his wit and humour as much as she did.
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