Our experience at the Bookaroo Fest.

Our Editor Mala Kumar writes about the Bookaroo Lit Fest in Delhi.
We’ve just got back from wintry Delhi after a wonderful time at the fifth edition of Bookaroo Lit Fest. Many of our authors and illustrators were at the 3-day event in the beautiful Sanskriti Kendra. The lawns were full of colourfully dressed kids. Clearly, both parents and children were spoilt for choice since there were so many interesting sessions happening simultaneously! We caught a large number of little kids hanging on to every word as our author Anupa Lal narrated a funny ghost story. We watched children reciting kadak-KADA-KADDAKKK as they followed Paro Anand’s story about Bhabhloo Bear, illustrated by Suvidha Mistry. Natasha Sharma, author and illustrator of Kaka and Munni, had her hands full being the wicked Kaka, and the narrator, and getting children to make colourful collage work.

My colleague Manisha and I read from our books, the Rituchakra Series, illustrated by Priya Kuriyan. May I say that it was the perfect weather for an event around the seasons! A nip in the air, breezy, wintry sun! And the singing by Sanghamitra Ghosh was so melodious, and the little bit in Raag Miyan ki Malhar so true, that it actually rained! Umm…well, we cheated—our colleagues Rajesh and Suraj made it ‘rain’ while Sandhya waved a dupatta to create the ambiance. The next day’s session was a reading from our newest book, Rukmini Banerji’s Counting on Moru, illustrated by Nina Sabnani. As a tribute to Moru, the fellow who loves numbers, and to the great mathematician Srinivasan Ramanujam, whose 125th birth anniversary it is this year we conducted a maths activity. The beautiful terracotta horses at the open museum of terracotta art lent themselves very well to mathematical problems indeed!

From one book fest to another, we’ve jumped right into being the outreach partners for Bangalore Literary Fest. More about that in another blog post.