Jun 09, 2003 03:07 PM
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(Updated Jun 09, 2003 03:17 PM)
Pre-Background:I was looking for a certain author in this section when I happened to chance upon this topic and then of course, I thought, why not write on the reading material that had a big part in making me, ME. I have thought of the 5 most unforgettable authors/publications that I read in my childhood. While the first two are bonafide authors, the rest are publications that have been a source of values that I hold dear as much as they have been part of my reading itinerary as a child. Oh, by the way, as with everything else on this site, this is purely my opinion. You are welcome to voice yours too.
Background:Ever since A was a weasly little girl of 4, she would curl up next to her Amma every afternoon and beg, plead and cajole her into taking a Malayalam weekly mag and reading out the comic strips in there. Amma was getting quite fed up with the little weasel’s trick of copping a free afternoon story every day. So, she thought of teaching the little weasel to read by herself. Well, she could probably never have imagined what a(book)fiend she was creating. A hasn’t stopped reading ever since and now poor Amma thinks she’d rather have read out all the comic strips in all the Mallu mags she could find, if only she hadn’t taught A the right end of a book, hardcover or paperback notwithstanding.
The Actual Thing:
Hans Christian Anderson
Hans! Dear Hans! So many tales…including The Little Mermaid, The Loveliest Rose in the World, The Emperor’s New Clothes. One characteristic common to whatever Anderson wrote was the melancholy in at least one character in each story. All the same, they were wonderful to read and they also had a deeper meaning to them. The Mermaid taught us about unconditional love, the Loveliest Rose was about God’s love for us and the Emperor’s New Clothes were about egos and stubbornness and about sheer stupidity. For all his melancholy, the man definitely imparted some values about how to live life properly. However, this kind of reading was reserved for when there was nothing else to read ‘cause a 5-year-old child looks for fun, not for moral values.
Enid Blyton
The Famous Five is what I best remember about Mme Blyton. And my utmost favourite was a book I won in a story-telling competition when I was all of 6. The book was Bimbo and Topsy…a book about a cat and dog trying to live compatibly in the same house and their view of their owners, their joint escapades and one trying to go one-up over the other. What more could this child ask for? I spent hours reading and re-reading it…its so tattered by now that no self-respecting junk dealer would care to touch it with a barge pole. Not that I’d give it away anyway, I never NEVER give away any of my books, if I can help it. The qualifier is because Amma always calls me a pack-rat and tries her best to re-arrange my life and my cupboard, in that order. And I don’t take to re-arranging, best intentions notwithstanding. We all know where the road paved with good intentions lead.
Amar Chitra Katha Publications
Aha! Come on, raise your hands…how many of you have never laid hands on a copy of this very popular ACK publication? Hardly anyone, right? At least, not if you have spent some time in India. I loved Kalia the clever crow and adored the stupid shmucky fox Chamataka even more and Doob-Doob the croc was an unintentional laugh riot…he still is, poor thing. Can’t catch his dinner if it sat on him, which it frequently does but that’s another story. Another steady in this publication is Suppandi, the little dumb guy who takes everything literally! Then there were the various craft stuff(you won’t believe the number of prizes won from those instructive lessons!) and the Did-u-Know-why knowledge banks. I first read about alchemy and Egyptians there. So also about baking bread, canals and navigation, space exploration, crocs and alligators, multi-coloured talking parakeets, and so much more. Tinkle was a veritable font of information and it still is – how’s that for maintaining standards, huh?
The other hot favourite from this publication was the Jataka Tales – a collection of inspirational stories about good deeds and humanity. If I am right, they even have a series on the Mahabharata. Wow!
Indrajal Publications
Phantom, the Ghost who walks and Mandrake, the Magician. These two were the be-all and end-all of Indrajal for me. It was considerably later – years, actually – when I heard of P C Sorcar’s version of Indrajal(Sorcar’s has to do with his magic acts, not comic books). I think I appreciated a …ahem…nicely-formed male ever since I laid eyes on the Ghost who walks. He, his wife Diana and his twins Kit and Heloise…as nuclear a family as they are, they still have room in their lives for the tribe that they live with. Frankly, for me, Phantom did more for Apartheid than any other entity, fictional or not. This is solely my opinion, please do not take offense over this.
Mandrake too had a hunk called Lothar who fought his physical battles for him. I discovered my fascination for magic and magicians during this phase. And of course, the obligatory good-versus-evil twist to each tale. Mandrake’s school of magic(though nothing as compared to Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School of Wizardry) was enough to sustain the most fervent of fascinations.
The other has-been in this category was the funny little man and his side-kick from outer space(something like Superman)…Chacha Choudhary and Sabu…I discovered these two quite late(I was around 12) to appreciate their brand of escapades and the language was atrocious, publication standards were non-existent.
Childcraft from Lotus Learning
This series of children’s’ encyclopaedia was probably the most influential in getting me hooked to reading any and every kind of written stuff. I was in tears when I opened a carton filled with 13 huge, hard-bound books. You see, though I read a lot, it was mostly thanks to the school libraries and other kids who did not appreciate a book when they had it. My parents till then, had never had to buy me books other than those that were part of the school curriculum. Looking back, I can say it was and still is the best gift of my life, so far. Amma and Papa must have shelled out quite a few bucks to get me that set and it is so prized that I spent a whole month one summer, making a casing out of used cardboard and Styrofoam to store these books. And I still read them, given half a chance.
Childcraft encouraged the arm-chair adventurer in me as well as the anthropologist. I have loved history ever since I read about world history in this publication and realised that history is not a bunch of dates and a boatful of lunatics dumping tea into the Boston harbour. I read about countries, leaders, why they did what they did – granted, a romanticised version of events, but readable all the same. And I hate to admit this, but Childcraft had a hand in making me accept Maths, if not love it. With the various tricks to remember numbers, I could not help but try them out and then learn from it!
Then there were the 3 volumes of stories, of course! I still look for classics in those pages and see if I can find them on the net to buy and keep.
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