My first reading at St. Mary's school yesterday told me, yet again, why I love writing for children. The number of questions they asked me and the way they interacted with me for a whole hour was simply wonderful. Writing, editing, publishing, marketing, illustrating and designing - they had questions about all these things. They wanted to know what an illustrator's options are. They wanted to know whether children can get books published. They wanted to know why sometimes books are not available in shops.If I have a big painting on cardboard, how can I send it to a publisher? How can I make an audio book on a CD? How can I ask the shopkeeper to sell my book? How long does it take to publish a book? They wanted to know everything - it was splendid!At the end of my four readings for the girls of class III, I am to write a small piece about the experience for the school magazine. I … [Read more...]
Book-Reading in MY School!
Once upon a time (in 1995, to tell the truth), my wonderful school-librarian encouraged us to write and illustrate books of our own. A friend and I sat and wrote a book of stories and poems. I forget what it's called. We illustrated it painstakingly - and one important lesson that I learned from that was that even if I could write, I could never draw. At the back of the book, we proudly put in little biographies - About the Authors. Mine says 'Varsha Seshan is 8 years old and studies in Standard IV A.' What else was there to say?My teacher kept that book. She got it rebound when it started falling to bits. And eighteen years later, when I have a 'real' book published, she wants me to go back to my school and talk to children about making it happen. She wants everyone to look at that book and then at my new official one. She asked me if I was willing. I'm not just willing - I'm … [Read more...]
Treasure Hunt
All my friends ask me where The Story-Catcher is available, all the time. I know how easily it's available online, and I tell everyone to buy it online. But I've wanted to know for a while where it is actually available so that people can go to a store and pay for it at the counter (and so that I can take a picture and prove to myself that a childhood dream has really come true).So yesterday, a very dear friend and I went on a treasure hunt for my book. It's the most fabulous experience of my life because I tried so hard to spot my book amongst all those haphazardly lined on the shelves. I had a list from my publisher and we went to Pune's famous Appa Balwant Chowk, hunting, hunting, hunting.We went first to Venus Traders. Running up and down looking for a book in a place that does not have a catalogue is far more exciting than I could ever have imagined. My book was not there. This … [Read more...]
The Mice who Turned into Fairies
I think I'm finally old enough to read stories I wrote when I was seven years old without cringing in embarrassment. Some still make me cringe; this isn't one of them, perhaps merely because it won the first prize in a story-writing contest when I was seven years old. Written in a four-lined notebook with painstaking neatness, it was 'edited' by my mother because seven-year-old Varsha did not understand the purpose of commas and paragraphs. Other than those original changes, The Mice who Turned into Fairies has been reproduced here as it was written.Once upon a time there lived five mice in a hole. One day another mouse came and said: "Please give me some food."So the five mice gave her a lot of food and to their astonishment, she turned into a fairy! After that, leaving a note saying where she lived, she went away.The mice thought that if they ate a lot of food they would also … [Read more...]
Plea for Justice
At one of the places where I teach, many of the children are brought up in the belief that the teacher is next to God. They are silent in class, not bold enough to speak, rarely confident enough to tell me that they did not understand something. It's a huge obstacle I have to surmount with each new student.Thanks to this, and because of the fact that punctuality is the responsibility of the parents of a seven-year-old and not the child herself, I didn't say anything to two children who were repeatedly late for my class. One day, the children, accompanied by their mother, came fifteen minutes late, and I seized the opportunity to tell the mother that this was not acceptable. Duly apologetic, the mother promised that it would not happen again.I thought the matter was over, but sensed undercurrents of something I could not quite place. One girl, not one of the late-comers, glanced … [Read more...]
A Problem I Never Solved
"This is my favourite! I like it more than you." This argument always bewildered me as a child, and bewilders me even now. I can never know how much anyone else likes anything. The rose may be your favourite flower, but it may not be mine. Yet, I may like it more than you do, and no one can prove that one way or the other!As a child, the more confusing problem was different. I looked at the sky and saw that it was blue. You looked at the sky and said that it was blue. How could I know for sure that the blue I saw was the same as the blue you saw?When I grew older, I learned about the science of colour. Wavelength, and all that. Maybe that ought to have convinced me, but it didn't because I learned that animals are colour-blind. What we see as so attractive in flowers, animal-mates, etc., doesn't look the same to them at all! So, that number associated with the colour was, finally, … [Read more...]
The Generation Gap
Children who know me as didi, a senior in dance class, often have trouble figuring out whether I belong to their generation or their parents' generation. Sometimes, I have trouble with it too.I was teaching two children with exactly the same problem. Often, they believed that I was in their generation, on their side, so to speak because I came from the same school, had some of the same teachers and all that. Yet, I was their teacher, so could not possibly be one of them.Once, while I was teaching them, it was pouring. It was not a thunderstorm, but a typical monsoon shower that peters out into a drip-drip-drip but does not stop. With a weekend ahead and no tests coming up, the idea of holidays made the girls restless. I finished five minutes early, much to their relief. I looked out of the window and said, "If it stops raining, you can play all evening today!"They threw me a look … [Read more...]
One-Arm-Distance
Children in dance class believe firmly that the closer they are to me the better I will be able to see them. I try every now and then - very ineffectively - to explain that this is not the case. "If you stand a little far, I can see you completely," I explain. "Otherwise, I can't see whether your arms are right, legs are neat..."For about thirty seconds, they keep their distance, and then, slowly, they sneak forward till I say to them, "You're dancing on my head again." And then they shriek with laughter, go back, and start the process all over again.During theory class, when everyone is sitting on the floor, I insist on at least one arm's distance. The children find that hilarious too because they associate the phrase with PT, not dance theory. They begin one arm's distance away, but in ten minutes, they are close to me again. Somehow, they inch forward even while they are seated, a … [Read more...]
Cool Cans
When cans of soft drinks were launched in India, they were both ridiculously expensive and ridiculously cool. I remember the summer holidays - four cousins in Bangalore, always hungry and always asking for ice-cream or cotton candy or, in the case of my cousins, soft drinks. I, sadly, did not like anything aerated, so I did not have the chance to strut down the street home with a cool can.My grandmother allowed money to be wasted on cans just once. My cousins, both boys, were excited. The younger one opened his immediately with a satisfying sushhh and downed it before we were home. My elder cousin, being the sweet elder brother, allowed me to open his. I knew that it was a privilege that was difficult for him to grant, and so, I was extra careful. I asked him what to do and listened very closely.Gently, I slid my finger into the tab. Step one successful.Fingers trembling with … [Read more...]
Cut
My sister and I often got invited to the same parties. Once, when I was about seven, both of us received birthday invitations that had a fancy RSVP slip that had to be cut along the dotted line. Below the dotted line, it said:I can/ cannot attend your birthday party. (Please cut one)I took my scissors and painstakingly cut out 'cannot'. My gaping hole became a bit too gaping though and I went sadly to my father. Both 'can' and 'cannot' had fallen victim to my scissors. My father laughed out loud, I remember, and explained that 'cut along the dotted line' was with scissors, but 'cut one' was with a pen. Now, how was a seven-year-old to know that? I remember how self-righteously upset I was!My father being my father, though, sat with blade and pen and altered my sister's RSVP slip, making it 'We can/ cannot attend your birthday party.' Then we had the joy of signing both our names … [Read more...]