For those who told us stories

Forty years of being a bonafide member of the press leave me partial to a pair of its particularities Magazine mastheads and book dedications ldquoFor those who told me storiesrdquo is a recent example of the latter that stays in mind mdashfrom Janice Pariatrsquos epochal novel Everything the Light Touches which sets travellers and discoverers across a sweep of continents over centuriesArresting in its lucidity the line has got me thinking and rethinking Who were the storytellers of my formative years How have they shaped a myriad lasting perceptions of my city of the country of the world of life itself Why are stories with animal characters the most attractive to pay attention toldquoBeduk bhau beduk bhau kheltos kardquo was an early refrain rendered in fullthroated Marathi by Kamal our house help She sang the staccato tune in every rain shower Inventing and inviting a baby frog to hop along with us en route to the neighbouring garden she pointed out seasonal wonders Wild daisy buds shooting up the pavement crack A road sign struggling to survive fierce monsoon winds The borawala on Bandrarsquos Hill Road scampering for shelter against strong gusts from grey nimbus cloudsWhen it poured far too heavily to be out and about the lovely ladies of the family dispelled any dismay my brother Phiroze and I felt at the prospect of no play evenings in Almeida Park which commemorates Professor Raphael drsquoAlmeida the noted botanist who gave his daughters exotic flower namesOur grandmum and mum shared Hollywood plotlines and convoluted plots of Hercule Poirot mysteries And a bevy of aunts regaled us with simple personal vignettes of daily life spent in different parts of India where our mill manager grandfather was postedThrough their toddlerhood both my children never tired hearing my ace raconteur motherinlaw tell them the ldquoreal storiesrdquo they begged for Some flowed forth as her Kimmins boarding school tales others were about the Convent of Jesus and Mary on Bycullarsquos Clare Road A fresh flood of anecdotes became their regular dinnertime treatAunty D Debalina Ray reading to children at MCubed Library in BandraThe stories wersquove all heard were relayed in an assortment of languages mdashGujarati English Marathi and Hindimdashdepending on the teller I was especially thrilled by those narrated in the softly inflected voice of Manek Dastoor our cousin in Khar who grew up in Navsari Exceedingly fond of children and animals she combined her loves relating stories of animal protagonists with the young Foremost among these were the escapades of Bakor Patel a wittywise goat in 1940s Bombay where he traded with firms in JapanCreated by Hariprasad Vyas this paghadikurtadhoticlad hero rules as a fourlegged star of Gujarati childrenrsquos literature With no siblings and scant mention of his parents he interacts with his ever practical wife Shakri Patlani and evocatively christened friends the tiger lawyer Vaghjibhai Vakil elephant Hathishankar Dhamdhamia camel Untadiya Doctor and cat Timu PanditldquoMost Gujaratis of a certain age recall the cover image of Bakor Patel with his cute beard and long ears sitting on an armchair reading a newspaperrdquo says my journalist friend Salil Tripathi ldquoIn a play for Indian National Theatre in the 1970s I acted as Timu Pandit Though Vyasrsquo cat was crafty the humour lacked malice and the tone was upliftingrdquoThe fourth generation of the writerrsquos family reads to the fifthPublished in a childrenrsquos biweekly from Gandiv Sahitya Mandir Surat the stories portray Bakor Patel always game for adventure attempting experiences which more often than not go wrong Taking failures and mishaps in his stride he spiritedly bumbles on The stories appeared from 1936 to 1955 with accompanying drawings typography and typically stylised titles by the artist brothers Tansukh and Mansukh of Surat ldquoChaal Bakor Patel ni vaato vaachyerdquo Maneck would ask and Irsquod dive into her lap to be regaled from the compilations April Fool Chamatkaar tya Namaskaar and Gammat par Gammat Irsquom convinced those reading sessions honed my preference for the fun and folksy the corny and zany All of which converged in researching and authoring my first title as an independent publisher Laughter in the House 20thCentury Parsi Theatre and later the Parsi Bol phrasebook editions copublished with Sooni Taraporevala Other delightful creatures beautifully seized the imagination An aunt got me acquainted with arguably literaturersquos bestloved bear inhabiting the Hundred Acre Wood With his red shirt stretching snug only halfway down a markedly tubby belly Winnie the Pooh joins his furry and feathered pals Piglet Tigger Owl Rabbit Eeyore the donkey Kanga and baby Roo to suggest great learnings everyone needs someone celebrate diversity in people donrsquot blindly trust authorityldquoLetrsquos find out how Pooh got his namerdquo the aunt coaxed probably igniting my curiosity to figure derivative meanings While AA Milne originally modelled Pooh on his son Christopherrsquos stuffed teddy the pocket diaries of Canadian vet and military man Harry Colebourn add the story of a real orphaned bear cub he adopted in 1914 naming it Winnie after his hometown of WinnipegEqually endearing bears are the Berenstains introduced by a beloved primary school teacher Miss Eugenie She explained how the artist couple illustrating the series Stan and Jan Berenstain met as students at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art visiting the local zoo together to sketch pictures as assignments Besides the bear brethren several species charm generations Goats to elephants and tinier characters there are adroit examples of anthropomorphism ndash assigning human traits to animals or objectsWhy does this device traditionally used in myth fable and fairy fiction work well and impact deeply Largely because animals cast in human role play are whimsically reassuring They allow emotional distance from pain in a manner tootrue humans do not They hold temporary reprieve from problems and dilemmas and a safe space for kids to explore or reflect in before reacting to critical choices ldquoWhat would Roly Robin dordquo was the question I asked myself as a fan of the chirpy exploits of the Robin family serialised in Womanrsquos Weekly the magazine my mum subscribed to for recipes romances and knitting patternsEvery family has a preferred animal Mine digs elephants Wersquove followed the tracks of herds of them over the years My son wasnrsquot quite four when he leaned into the hospital cot the morning his sister was born saying ldquoMummy looks tired Let me read you thisrdquo and began whispering a Babar the Elephant episode into her shellsmall ears That so made me smile away the Caesarean discomfortThe brainchild of Jean de Brunhoff country bumpkin Babar is hard to beat for smart individuality Dressed in natty spats and determined to get ahead Babar wanders into town to acquire a sartorial elegance his tribe has never known becomes the hit of high society and is crowned elephant kingMy daughter continued enjoying wonderful elephant sagas even matching moment to mood Shopping for paints at Crawford Market one afternoon we found ourselves opposite the JJ School of Art She happened to be clutching a 1919 authorillustrated edition of Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling whose wooden bungalow stood on the same grounds His father John Lockwood Kipling teacher of architectural sculpture brought the family here when stationed on campus Squatting under a mango tree at that spot I read aloud the Tale of the Elephantrsquos Child on the banks of the Limpopo River in Africa Happily hooked she wanted to wander around the historic precinctIn Madhur Jaffreyrsquos Robi Dobi the Marvelous Adventures of an Indian Elephant magnanimous Robi Dobi meets and mentors a ragtag bunch of needy creatures Little Big Ears The Story of Ely sees writer Cynthia Moss and photographer Martyn Colbeck compassionately trace the saga of crippled newborn Ely an inspiring survivor who trumps threat to triumph combining inner strength with sly mischief to keep himself going Not to forget Disneyrsquos flapeared Dumbo the flying elephant who reassures us that itrsquos okay to be differentPerking up the pages elephants provide much to think about despite slapstick misfortunes In Rosy is my Relative by Gerald Durrell the eponymous elephant with a circus background is thrust on a hesitant human to hysterical result Resourceful if riotous among her other sterling qualities Rosy has a propensity for getting gloriously tipsy on any gin or cherry brandy her trunk wraps around Inebriated enough to indulge in many a merry romp her absurdity is endearingLumbering and towering yet incredibly sage and gentle Horton is one of the more memorable pachyderms in print Childcentric and adultadmired the Dr Seuss classic Horton Hatches the Egg describes this gallant elephant ludicrously offering to sit on the egg of a mother bird who wonrsquot Guarding lazy Mayziersquos chick through trying times until it finally hatches loyal Horton succinctly trumpets the rhyme ldquoI meant what I said and I said what I meantAn elephantrsquos faithful one hundred per centrdquo Intelligent and insightful maverick and magical animals walk the talk As a character in Janice Pariatrsquos book remarks ldquoIsnrsquot that why we embark on journeys Not only to see new things but to see things in new waysrdquoAuthorpublisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay You can reach her at mehermarfatiamiddaycomwwwmeher marfatiacom