A positive buzz

The title, also available in Hindi, will be translated to other languages

In the land of Makkhipuri, no one seemed to be bothered by the constant buzz as the fly was the god. So, the people never covered their food, and Makkhilal, the king of flies, devoured everything from sabzi to sweets. They prayed to Makkhilal for their health, and yet no one knew why the children kept falling sick. The story, narrated in a new book called The Tale of Makkhilal (Katha), isn't entirely fictional. Diarrhoea - a disease that's easily preventable through basic sanitation, hygiene and clean drinking water - accounted for approximately eight per cent of all deaths among those under the age of five in 2017 worldwide, states a UNICEF report.

"Even today, so many children die of diarrhoea though the cure is something as simple as ORS. This doesn't happen to kids from middle class or upper middle class families; it happens only when you're poor. Apart from water, flies carry 80 per cent of diseases," explains author and Katha founder Geeta Dharmarajan. While working with underprivileged sections of society, she noticed that they were casual about keeping food uncovered or eating things on which flies sat, which is what led her to address this cause.

The story unravels in the form of a fun poem. "Children respond better to rhymes. The idea was to create content that they are able to laugh at, while recognising the ridiculous stereotypes we tend to follow," shares Dharmarajan. The saviour in the tale, much like our current predicament, is Doctor saab, who smashes the blind faith of the people in their god, and scares the flies away. Equating leaders to gods is also something she wanted to address keeping in mind the socio-political environment, she adds. "Towards the end, the narrative shifts from the fly to the idea of how we pick a leader. It's our right and our duty to do so, without being pressured. This idea has to be planted at a very young age," elaborates the author, adding that these two themes are melded together by the illustrations.

Charbak Dipta and Geeta Dharmarajan

With just two lines on each page, it is the art work, by Charbak Dipta, that elevates the message. Although the fly is considered the god, Dipta uses a scattered watercolour effect to portray the lack of hygiene and depict its cunning nature. "This is also a political and social commentary. The colours play a vital role in translating emotions. So, I limited the palette to two or three shades to keep the theme grim, and yet child-friendly. When the flies go away, brighter colours come back," he shares.

In the end, there's also a guide for kids on what to do to keep away flies and how to prevent diarrhoea. "The hope is the kids will deliver the message to their families. If we can let them tell us what to do, I think we'll end up having a healthier country," Dharmarajan signs off.

Log on to amazon.in for Kindle edition; pre-order paperback edition on katha.org

Kiddos give it a double thumbs up

Nine-year-old Ethan Mendes, a resident of Borivali's IC Colony, who read The Tale of Makkhilal to his four-year-old sister, Amanda, tells us he liked the moral of the story. "The story rhymed, so it was fun to read it to her. I also enjoyed the fun facts on flies at the bottom of the story," says Mendes. The siblings share that they also liked the illustrations and remarked "how colourful" the pages were. Their mother, Lavina, adds that Amanda seemed to love the fact that when the doctor came, the children stopped falling sick. "As Amanda likes to play, she was happy that they could too," she says.

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