Anita Nair’s new book for children, ‘Bipathu and A Very Big Dream’, is set in her ancestral village in Palakkad

Anita Nairs new book for children Bipathu and A Very Big Dream is set in her ancestral village in Palakkad

Going by author Anita Nair’s new book, Bipathu and A Very Big Dream, it takes a village to raise a child and, also, spin a story. Set in Kaikurussi, a fictional village in North Kerala, the book for children tells the heart-warming story of nine-year-old Bipathu, an ardent football fan, and her world.

Speaking over the phone from Bengaluru, Anita says the book, which was released on July 23 at the Vayanashala at Mundakkottukurissi, Palakkad, has several autobiographical elements in it, as Kaikurussi is a fictional sketch of Mundakkottukurissi, where she hails from. Kaikurussi first appeared in her book, The Better Man.

Anita says it is only right that the book for children, published by Penguin, be released at the library in Mundakkottukurissi. Every year, Anita gives away prizes for the toppers in Malayalam and English, in classes four and seven. “Moreover, students in class seven have a story of mine to study — ‘The Village Pooram’, which is set in the village. They are familiar with the festival and the landscape I describe. Every time I am in Palakkad, the school invites me over for an interaction with the students,” she says.

The library, adds Anita, is a nerve centre of the village with several events and reading sessions held there regularly. She adds that the secretary of the library, Subhash Thodayam, also the headmaster of the government lower primary school at Kizhakkupadam, had helped her in fine tuning details in her book for children.

“I would turn to him for help to understand the school, what kind of bell was rung there, the syllabus of environmental science for class four and so on. So, the book had to be released there as it has much of the village in it,” says Anita.

Bipathu’s world consists of her widowed umma (mother), her physically challenged brother Saad, her baby brother Faesal, and her friends in school, at the madrasa and in the village. A resident in the village, whom Bipathu calls madama ( colloquial way of addressing Caucasian women), a maash (teacher), Duggu and a dog bring many refreshing changes in the child’s life.

The story of Bipathu was first written for a writer-translator in Sangli who requested for a short story to be included in a magazine meant for children in rural areas in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. Since Anita did not have any unpublished stories that were suitable, she wrote about a little girl who dreams of a book of her own and how a neighbour gives her a carton of books in which she finds the book of her dreams.