How Did We Find Takloo?

Mala Kumar shares a little behind-the-scenes (behind-the-pages?) story about the book chosen for this year’s ‘One Day One Story’ campaign.

This is a story about Takloo. No, no, not about Takloo, the little character in our book ! This is about the book, and how Pratham Books got to publish Takloo, the Little Salt Seller. One of our illustrators, Indu Harikumar, sent us a link to illustrator Poonam Athayle’s portfolio. We liked the illustrations, especially one that showed a bald-headed little boy and a crow sitting on top of a cow. “Do you have a story that goes with this illustration?” we asked the illustrator in a mail. And that’s when she introduced us to the author, Radhika Bapat. When we saw the entire book as a PDF, our whole team fell in love with Takloo. And that’s when we decided to publish it. Serendipity means…finding a beautiful sea shell when you are digging into a pot of sea-salt, isn’t it?