Interactive Tamil boardbooks for children: This publishing startup presents a quirky take on popular tales

Interactive Tamil boardbooks for children

The popular story of the grandma who sold vadai now has an interesting twist. Perhaps one of the most narrated, reproduced, and illustrated Tamil children’s stories of all time, it is now available as an interactive boardbook. Agan Adhigaram, a publishing startup by Chengalpattu-based husband-and-wife duo Ramya Karthikeyan and D Sethuram, has brought out this story with push, pull, and slide mechanisms aimed at helping little fingers develop the pincer grasp. The publishing house recently brought out its second title I, also an interactive boardbook.

Agan is the result of Ramya and Sethuram’s search for Tamil boardbooks for their son, who is now three. “We have been reading to him from the time he was a baby, but found that most good quality boardbooks for children were in English,” says 32-year-old Ramya, who is an automobile engineer. She and her husband Sethuram, who is good at drawing, hence came up with something on their own for their child.

“We picked the popular paati vada sutta kadhai, added colourful illustrations, and came up with Vadai Poche, that was first published in 2022,” says Ramya. The book, that they actually printed for their son, caught the attention of their friends, and soon, the couple made more copies, eventually starting their own publishing house.

Their latest title I is based on the five Tamil landscapes Kurinji, Mullai, Marudham, Neithal, and Paalai. “Many of us who studied Tamil in school know these landscapes from an academic point of view. We wanted to make this fun and interactive for children,” says Ramya. The book features the slider mechanism on the cover and comes with lift-the-flap add-ons on every spread. It has pictures of the flora and fauna of the various landscapes, depicting the kind of work people living there did, the food they ate, water resources found, among other aspects.

Ramya adds that I has been put together by referencing Sangam texts such as Tholkappiam and Silappathikaram. “The title stands for the way children express a sense of awe, as well as for ‘five’, that denotes the landscapes,” explains Ramya adding that the book was launched two weeks ago by Tamil lyricist Madhan Karky and his wife and podcaster Nandini Karky in Chennai.

Sethuram, who is an automobile engineer himself, has now quit his corporate job to focus on their publishing house. Their next book is in the works. Ramya says that is a humourous story that will feature their original illustrations.

For details, visit them on Instagram @agan_adhigaram