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Book Box: Richa Jha and the picture books that changed my day
Rediscovering wonder, confronting old shame, and finding books for children in the Himalayas through an exhibition of children’s books illustrations
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Dear Reader,
It has been years since I last looked at picture books. Then two things happen.
My friend Anna starts a library for the children of migrant workers in Manali. She needs books for early readers: picture books in both Hindi and English. I promise her I’ll visit my favourite picture book store, Kahani Tree in Mumbai, and buy a whole carton of books to get her library started.
The second is that I come across a social media post about ‘Becoming’, an exhibition of children’s book illustrations. I know instantly that it will be worth visiting. It has been curated by someone I have long admired: Richa Jha, children’s writer and publisher at Pickle Yolk Books.
But it’s been a hectic few days. I have just returned to the city and have three hundred things to do before I must leave again. I walk into the P.L Deshpande gallery at Ravindra Natya Mandir feeling frazzled, my mind full of everything I haven’t yet done: the brokers, the bankers and the dentist.
One step into the first-floor gallery, and I forget everything else. I am in an illuminated storybook.
Where do I begin?
On my left, a grandmother in a rich red saree with a bold cobalt blue border gazes at her grandson. I want to know more about the intergenerational bond that radiates such warmth and tenderness in this illustration by Poonam Athalye for The Glass Tree, written by M. Mukundan.
On my right, a bed seems to dissolve into emerald-green and deep-blue ocean waves swirling around a sleepy child. Her mother reclines beside her, wearing an earthy, warm mustard yellow sari. The illustration by Sunaina Coelho for Rabindranath Tagore’s Clouds and Waves is dreamy and deeply comforting.
Elsewhere, there are sweeping landscapes, people, birds, trees, a moustache, a pair of scissors...
Then Richa Jha, the curator, joins me. As we gaze at an illustration from Abanindranath Tagore’s Khirer Putul, she tells me how it all began. This reproduction from 1896 is thought to be the first illustration printed in a children’s book meant for leisure reading. Other striking black-and-white illustrations by Nandalal Bose, Sukumar Ray, and Satyajit Ray also share this wall.
So why Becoming?
“There’s a story in every form of becoming: that of people, bonds, relationships, vocations, interests, neighborhoods, cities, nations, the Earth,” says Richa.
Behind these walls lies an effort that is hard to describe. Choosing the illustrations. Getting permissions and digital files from publishers, authors and illustrators. Printing them on large canvases. Packing them into a 20-foot container and sending them from Delhi, where the show first opened, to Mumbai.
I walk on, moving from one large pool of light and colour to another.
My favourite works are the illustrations and text from the books about artists – Sarayu’s Museum Adventures with Amrita Sher-Gil by Anusha Ramanathan, and Somnath Hore: Wounds and Abanindranath’s House of Stories, both books by Likla Lall.
Actually, scratch that. My favourite books are the ones about girl problems nobody talks about. The ones about girls who get their periods. I still remember the shame and embarrassment of getting my period, and the dread of other people finding out. I suffered stomach cramps in silence, as though menstruation were some dark, dirty secret. I’m thrilled that girls today have books like Laali, written by Mamta Nainy and illustrated by Suvidha Mistry, and Is It the Same for You?, written by Neha Singh and illustrated by Priya Sebastian. Singh writes:
‘Since I started my period, I have to wear a scarf. I looked at myself in the mirror. I had mixed feelings about it.’
On second thoughts, perhaps my favourite books are the ones about trees: Finding Trees by Geeta Dharmarajan, What Is a Tree? by Marti, and The Spring of Life: How Moirangthem Loiya Saved a Forest by Canato Jimo. All of these will be so relevant for the children of Anna’s library, growing up in the fragile ecosystem of the Himalayas.
All right, I take that back too. There are so many wonderful canvases that choosing favourites seems impossible. The exhibition, Becoming, brings together more than a hundred illustrations from 130 years of children’s books, featuring 65 illustrators from India and abroad and works published by 25 publishers.
What I really want is to stay here all day. I know exactly where I’ll be: in the cosy corner with a rug, cushions and boxes of books. Later, I will go to Kahani Tree, the bookstore down the road, and fill a carton with books for Anna’s library. I’ll pick up a few duplicates for myself, too. Let the to-do lists wait a while.
What about you, dear Reader? When did you last look at a picture book? And which ones have stayed with you? Do share your favourites!
Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist, Founder of Sonya’s Book Box, and a teacher of Storytelling in Business. Got a knot in your life, a dilemma at work, or a reading slump you can’t shake? Send your questions and book requests to sonyasbookbox@gmail.com, and she promises to give each one her most earnest consideration.
