(Noemie Bellanger interned with us during the month of April 2018. She writes about her experience working with Karadi Tales, and what she learnt about India through just our books.)
For the past few
months, my life has consisted of travelling from one children’s book publishing
house to another, from one country to another, doing one-month internships in
seven publishing houses across the world. For my 4th internship, I
ended up at Karadi Tales, a publishing house in Chennai, India, that I had been
aware of for a few years ever since I worked on the British version of their
book Monkeys on a Fast during a
previous internship. Instead of this being just another average internship,
this month was a real journey through Indian children’s literature.
In my first couple of
days, I had the chance to go through Karadi Tales’ catalogue. I travelled from
Allahabad with Farmer Falgu Goes to the
Kumbh Mela to Kashmir with Sadiq Wants
to Stitch, to the mountains of Ladakh with Thukpa for All. I gathered that India is a diverse country with
multiple cultures and communities, and that each region can be vastly different
from the other. When you come from France, as I do, you tend to have certain
stereotypical views of India - a country
where everyone eats naan, all the women wear sarees, and everyone dances to
Bollywood music. But when I read Karadi Tales’ books, I got a clear insight into
the many different regions of India and realized that each of them have
different languages and dialects, different food, different cultures, and
habits. Because children’s picture books have so many references to everyday
life, it is one of the best ways to prove stereotypes wrong and to comprehend
the complexity of a country and its various cultures.
Learning about Indian
illustrations and tribal art was a priority for me during my trip to Chennai.
At Karadi Tales, I got the opportunity to meet artists and designers like
Ashwathy P.S. She told me about the process of making Fly, Little Fish!, a book by Karadi Tales that uses Gond tribal
illustrations. She explained how difficult it was for her to reproduce the same
little fish all through the book with different perspectives using only dots
and lines. Before I came to Karadi Tales, I had no idea about tribal art styles
like Gond, Bhil, or Warli. I also did not know that art was a part of
daily life here until I walked down Chennai’s streets and noticed the kôlams on
doorsteps drawn every morning by women. Art can be found everywhere in India –
on the floor, on the walls, and even on clothes. How does one continue to
produce original, unique art when there is so much all around? I imagine this
must be a big challenge for Indian illustrators.
Reading and
storytelling can take you on a trip of its own kind. I remember when I was a
child, every night, my mum used to tell me a story before I went to bed. For
me, it was like a sacred ritual and I couldn’t sleep without it. As I grew up,
I continued to be fascinated by storytellings. I still love hearing books read
aloud, it gives you the impression the characters are talking directly to you. The
whole concept of audiobooks struck me as being such a great idea – what a
wonderful way to promote stories and reading! With Karadi Tales audiobooks, you
not only have someone reading you the story, but even better, you have beautiful
background music to get the atmosphere of the story. Another way of discovering
stories that Karadi Tales has brought to Indian children’s literature.
Now that it is time
for me to go to another country, I recognise that books can be a great
introduction to a country and can give you a unique perspective into the
everyday life and culture of that country. Books can make you travel through
any country during any time in history. They make up some of my best memories
from the past and continue to be one of my best excuses to live the present as
intensively as I can.
