by SHAMIM PADAMSEE
Author: Mukul Dube
Illustrator: Fahad Faizal
ISBN : 978-81-89934-77-4
Pubisher : Katha Books
A delightfully different book. It starts by narrating a story of Razia and her Pink Elephant but like a wayward mind, in which one thought leads to another, the story jumps from one zany situation to another with the reader finding herself on a roller-coaster ride of sorts.
Starting with a gang of gulli-danda playing senior citizens, to Razia’s dad who has an extremely dull job making trains run on time and ensuring that hens lay enough eggs, to Sher Singh, the elephant who is a taster in a carrot canning factory, to Natasha the enterprising courier pigeon, and so on, only to find that the story of Razia that seemed to be lurking right round the corner, will alas remain untold. As, the pages of the book were exhausted.
This wacky story is sure to delight children and will probably entice non-readers with its light-hearted humour.
A zany story needs zany illustrations and the illustrator has more than succeeded in creating images that will have kids poring over them, enjoying the quirky little idiosyncrasies.
Young India Books
…
About the author
Mukul Dube wears a lungi and a big grey beard. He gets Soul Food (although he does not believe in souls or in any other stuff to do with any religion) from children and dogs, and now and then from cats also. His portrait here was made, several years ago, by his Lady Friend Jaya Misra. A Lady Friend is legally defined as “a darling human female under the age of ten”. Once appointed, a Lady Friend remains that for life: so he has some who are now well over 45.
The old chap doesn’t talk about himself because he’s usually busy writing, or ruining other people’s writing (he calls this “editing”), or taking photographs, or cooking cheese omelettes, or making coffee that is widely held to be the world’s finest, or repairing motorcycles or electric fans, or ironing shirts or nappies, or … composing a silly profile like this one for a web site.