Writer Perumal Murugan’s latest book for children features a heartwarming story from his childhood

Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s first children’s book for Tulika

A mother walks along a narrow dirt road on a moonlit night. In her arms is her 10-month-old infant as her five-year-old son trots ahead with a lamp in hand. She has work to do in the millet fields: tufts of empty kambu stalks have to be pulled out to make way for the next crop. With the moon shining bright, she decides to take her children along. This is a story Perumal Murugan has heard many times from his mother. He narrates it in his trademark simple style that gently tugs at the heartstrings in Out In The Moonlight, his first children’s book for Tulika.

Perumal Murugan is the 10-month-old in the story. “My mother has told me how that night, I slept inside a basket that she placed near the fields as she worked,” recalls the author, speaking over phone from Namakkal where he lives. The story is from Thondra Thunai, a collection of essays on his mother, that has been translated in English as Amma.

It has been illustrated by Ashok Rajagopalan who has painted the pages in nightly blue. The story presents a glimpse into a day in the life of a steely mother who is happy to lug around her little boys to work, turning a mundane task into a story she will keep telling them once they are older. The book is for children aged five and above.

Perumal Murugan has written for children years ago. Only, many of them have not been printed: “I wrote several stories and songs for my son and daughter when they were little,” he recalls, adding that they would sing his songs at home.

Some of them were published in children’s magazines such as Minmini and Siruvarmani, but he eventually found himself writing for adults. He says he does enjoy writing for children. “I engage with them whenever I get the chance,” he says, adding that he often gets to interact with his elder brother’s grandkids, and his students’ children. “I would teach them to play games I played in the villages as a young boy,” he says.

The author shares that he has now started to write for children once again. Poonachi, the good old goat from his novel of the same name, is now the protagonist in a series of stories for children that the author is working on. “I have written around five stories and plan to add more and bring it out as a compilation for children,” he says.

The author has taken voluntary retirement from academics and is now writing full time. He has come a long way — from being the eye of the storm in the Madhorubagan ( One Part Woman) controversy stirred by casteist groups, to being featured in the longlist of the International Booker Prize 2023 for the Pyre, the English translation of the novel Pookkuzhi, that again, talks about a young couple’s tragic end, driven by caste’s ugliness. He says he is “happy” about the recognition to his work and takes it all in his stride. To him, nothing has changed.