Anita Nair on ‘Bipathu and a Very Big Dream’: ‘The biggest challenge in writing children’s fiction is finding the right tone’

Anita Nair says the nine-year-old football-crazy protagonist was born in a short story and refused to dislodge herself from Anita’s mind till she wrote a full-fledged novel about Bipathu

Bipathu, the precocious nine-year-old in the little village of Kaikurussi in Kerala, has three great loves—her elder brother, Saad, the actor, Hrithik Roshan, and football. All three come together in Anita Nair’s charming children’s book, Bipathu and a Very Big Dream (Puffin Books), released on Sunday morning at Bookworm on Church Street. The book is dedicated to “Mohammed Saad in Bangalore” and “Duggu, Kaloo, Ranga and Jimmy in Dehghat and Sunderapandi, Nachimuthu and Zoon in Bangalore.”

“Mohammed Saad is a friend’s son,” the 57-year-old author says. “The first time he and his little brother came to visit me at my home, the two boys and I had a wonderful time together.” Saad, Anita says, created an indelible impression on her. “His determination to overcome the limitations caused by his condition and his resolve to do everything his brother did, left me feeling humbled.”

When she started work on Bipathu And A Very Big Dream, Anita knew she had to celebrate Saad’s spirit. “I decided to weave in a child with cerebral palsy into the story and that helped me to talk about other aspects of the condition – the lack of sensitivity among even family members and societal disdain.”

The seven dogs, four in Himachal and three in Bangalore including her two gorgeous Chippiparais, Sunderapandi and Nachimuthu, Anita says, light up her life. “I wanted to say a little thank you to them for safeguarding my soul in a happy place.”

Duggu, the puppy Bipathu rescues, Anita says is based on a dog in Himachal. “Duggu liked to wake me up by bouncing on me. My friend, whose dog Duggu is, asked me one morning, ‘Did you know Hrithik Roshan is called Duggu?’ That was how Hrithik Roshan makes a cameo appearance.”

Some years ago a school teacher from a small town in Maharashtra asked Anita to contribute a story for a children’s magazine that would circulate in the district. “She said she would do the translation. It was meant to encourage reading among children in rural areas.” Anita was in Kerala at the time. “I wrote a story about a girl called Bipathu, who refused to dislodge herself from my mind and eventually I knew I had to write a children’s novel with Bipathu as its central character.”

Maash (teacher), or Shree Raman, who first appeared in Anita’s audio-short story, ‘The Little Duck Girl’, makes a welcome return in Bipathu And A Very Big Dream. Anita says she is grateful to actor Prakash Raaj who gave voice to Maash. “He made the character so real a presence that it seemed pre-ordained that Maash had to appear in this children’s novel even though the audio story had been out for more than two years when I started work on Bipathu And A Very Big Dream. I wove Maash in initially as a minor character but he acquired muscle and sinew, and became very important.