Happy to share that the video version of my new book 

Zero to Ten are all my Friends 

is out and free to view :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1uBOwkBCvk

 A promo video for Zero to Ten are all my Friends - my little book for little readers :-)

 Dear Friends,

I'm happy to share that my new book is out on Amazon as both a print and ebook.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NRBTHNC/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1639820517&sr=1-1

Zero to Ten are all my Friends is a delightful introduction to numbers and counting for little readers. It is a charming book with lovely illustrations to help little readers make friends with numbers. Written in a series of rhyming verses, from zero to ten, each verse explains the concept of a number. There is also an introductory and a concluding verse to reinforce the idea that numbers are our friends and once a child is familiar with them, there’s so much more fun that one can have playing with them. This book would be of interest to parents, teachers, playschools, schools – and little children, of course!

 

Dear Friends, I’m happy to share that I have a new website with information about my books and other trivia and pictures that may of interest. It also has free learning resources and downloads for parents and children.  Do check it out at: https://kepriyamvada.com/

 Dear Friends, I’m happy to inform you that ‘Animal Antics’ is now easily available as a print book in the US, from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MSQ41ZR...

It would make a great gift for children or the New Year. If you would like a fun, educational and informative book about animals and birds for your child, as a gift for your friends’ children, or indeed for readers of all ages who enjoy humorous verse or reading about wildlife, then this is the book for you!

Happy to share that my next book Grubbipus Maximus and the Magic Mirror is out as an ebook on Kindle.

Grubbipus Maximus and the Magic Mirror is the story of a grubby and unfriendly creature who faces a strange situation. He wakes up one morning to find out everyone around him thinks he's no longer with them and that's when he realizes what they really think of him. It makes him look back at how he's lived his life till then. Does he undergo a change of heart? You'll have to read it to find out. This book would be of interest to young readers (age 8 and above), parents and teachers. Younger children (6+) could enjoy listening to the story being read out aloud to them. The story highlights the values of kindness and caring for others. It details the events of a few days in the life of Grubbipus Maximus (Grubby). In the course of his work as a grasping pawnbroker, Grubby comes across a magic mirror. The mirror shows him the reality of his life and the values that matter in the end. Written in a humorous vein, the story and its characters are likely to stay with you long after you've read it.

 

Grubbipus Maximus and the Magic Mirror

 

 

A poem that I entered in the All India Poetry Contest 2016 has won a prize :-)
The house is more than 120 years old...

My Grandmother’s Home

      A red hibiscus flower peeps through 
                                    a rusty iron gate,

It creaks as I swing it open and walk down the narrow sandy   path.

Lantana bushes lean over the parapet on either side,

Their colourful flowers, splashes of yellow,

Orange and pink amidst the green foliage.

Tall coconut trees rise behind them, reaching up to the sky.

A plum-headed parakeet peers out of a tree hole, looking for its mate.                                                                                              

Ahead, the sandy path opens into a courtyard that surrounds the house,

Low steps lead up to the long cool veranda,

Where two kittens play in the shade of the                                                ochre-tiled roof,

That slopes down from the second floor,

Where mama cat lounges nonchalantly on the sun-warmed tiles.                                                                                                                                

I walk past the rows of potted plants on the steps along the veranda’s  edge,                      

And around the corner of the house, where the well,                  

With its brown laterite walls covered in green moss,

Waits for someone to break the silence with a splash,

By letting down the iron bucket and chain,

Into the cool depths, where small black fish circle amidst the water weeds.       

Around the back and there’s the kitchen garden,

Where papaya trees line the compound wall.                

A curry tree near the open kitchen door, 

Provides fresh leaves for memorable meals;

Cats wait outside the kitchen door for leftover bits of fish.

Squirrels run over the gnarled old mango and jack trees,

And the smell of ripe jackfruit hangs invitingly in the air;

At night, fruit bats enjoy the sweet taste of succulent mangoes. 

Around the corner and in the shade of the rear porch,

A stack of coconuts waits to be eaten,

Along with heaps of dried palm leaves to be burnt,

As fuel in the old kitchen hearth.

I turn another corner and behind a green thicket of cannas,

The memorial stones of my great-grandparents lie in peaceful rest.

Having come full circle, I turn and climb up the steps to the veranda,

Where we young cousins studied and played in its cool shade.

Watched over by my grandmother on her easy chair.

I hear the echoes of our childhood laughter…

I sit on her chair and look out at the green vista,

Where bee-eaters and sunbirds chirp as they flit among the flowers.

Hidden amidst the trees, a crow pheasant calls,

Its deep booming interrupts their twitter.

I look up and see an owl perched beneath the eaves,

Sleeping peacefully under the roof.

I try to pen down my thoughts on paper,

And find myself able to write just a line—

‘All of us found shelter here…’

Fireflies

 As the dusk deepens,
And the light fades away,
All of a sudden,
There are sparkles at play;

 

Flickers in the darkness,
Pinpricks of light,
Brief bursts of radiance,
Light up the night.

 

As a pair of fireflies,
Flash their lights off and on,
Intermittently twinkling,
Now they’re here, now they’re gone…

 

There’s a biological reason,
For their luminescent light,
As one signals to its mate,
‘Come hither, tonight!’

 

And the other replies,
‘I’m coming, I know.’
Responding to its partner,
With a flash and a glow.

 

And the poet in me,
Sees their flickering display,
As a game of passion,
That two lovers play…

 

Alight in a gleam,
That teases and burns,
Now restless, now still,
As a lover yearns.

 

Aglow in the heat,
Of a fervid fire,
Seeking the warmth,
Of love’s ardent desire.

 

With a flash and a gleam,
They swoop through the air,
Signalling to each other,
‘I’m here, are you there?

 

As fireflies dance,
And light up the night,
I wonder when our love
Will burn so bright…?

 

This poem was placed 3rd in the All India Poetry Contest 2015, conducted by the Poetry Society of India: http://www.indianpoetry.org/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wishing everyone a Happy Independence Day!

I'm sharing my story about a brave little kite called Tiranga,
who learns to fly with a little help from his friends.

Flying High

The Story of a Brave Little Kite

Always hold your head up high!

Here is the list of characters in our story

Tiranga* – a brave little tricoloured kite

Ram Kumar – the master kite-maker

Chutki – one of the makers of Tiranga, and the daughter of Ram Kumar

Vijay – one of the makers of Tiranga, and the son of Ram Kumar

Ajgar – a nasty kite that looks like a demon

Leher – a helpful pink kite

Guru – an experienced kite that has won many kite battles

Many other kites of different shapes and sizes.

And the story begins...

Hi! My name is Tiranga – I’m a little kite and I soar in the breeze with pride. But I wasn’t always able to hold my head up high. In fact, I was scared of heights. But today I’m not afraid of anything. Let me tell you why. 

The first thing I remember is lying in pieces on the floor of the kite-maker’s hut. I was being put together by Vijay and Chutki, the kite-maker’s children and apprentice kite-makers themselves.

First, Vijay joined two thin strips of bamboo in the shape of a cross, with the smaller horizontal piece tied across the longer vertical one about three-fourths along its length. He then bent a third strip of bamboo in a curve. He stuck the top of the vertical strip to the middle of the curved strip, so that the curved piece’s ends touched the tips of the cross-wise horizontal strip, where he fastened them together. He then stuck four thin strips of bamboo in a diamond shape to form my edges. My skeleton was ready! Chutki stretched three pieces of coloured paper across the bamboo frame, neatly glued the edges and added a colourful tail to my lower end.

 I was a smart little diamond-shaped kite, with saffron, white and green bands and a tail with three colourful ribbons! The children propped me up against a wall, alongside all the other kites they had made earlier.

‘Oh! Look at the smart new kite,’ a pretty pink one with golden spangles said.

‘Hi! I’m Leher. What’s your name?’ She asked me.

‘I’m Tiranga,’ I said, ‘I’m new here.’

‘Don’t worry, after you’ve flown a few times you’ll be fine. We were all new once, weren’t we grandpa?’ she said looking at a battered kite nearby.

‘Yes, yes, newcomers, no respect for elders,’ said the battered kite.

‘He is Guru’ Leher whispered. ‘He is the most experienced flier of us all. Hush, Ram Kumar, the kite-maker’s coming.’

Ram Kumar walked in carrying a large kite with a demon-like face and came over to see what his children were doing.

‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Let’s take the kites out and test them.’

Vijay tied a string to my midsection and carried me out into the field to see if I could fly. 

Chutki held me carefully by my shoulders and threw me into the air, while Vijay held the reel and pulled me upwards with the help of the wind. Meanwhile Ram Kumar launched the demon-faced kite.

I didn’t know what to do or how to fly. The wind was blowing in my face and I became frightened and turned away. 

Then I was blown from side to side and to make things worse, the demon-faced kite tried to attack me. 

‘Ha, Ha! I am Ajgar and I’m going to eat you up!’ he thundered, as he tried to swoop down on me. I was so scared, I tried to run away, hide behind a cloud and avoid Ajgar, but the string in Vijay’s hand held me back. 

Ajgar swooped forward and dashed against me. Suddenly my string was broken and I was spinning, tumbling and falling out of the sky. I felt as if I was going to fall apart and then I felt only darkness...

When I regained consciousness, I was back in the hut and Chutki was gently repairing a tear on my body. ‘Poor kite,’ she said ‘to be almost destroyed on your first flight.’

‘Oh, it was the big kite’s fault,’ said Vijay, carrying in the demon-faced kite. ‘We shouldn’t have flown them together. We’ll try flying the tricolour kite again tomorrow morning. It’s got a good balance. I’m sure we can do more with it.’

Chutki propped me up as far from the big kite as possible and they left to have dinner.

I was utterly miserable, in tears, and sure that I would never fly again. 

‘Don’t be sad,’ a soft voice said. It was Leher. ‘Everyone feels low sometimes.’

‘But, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to fly and I am so scared of being at such a height.’

‘Scared, of course, you are. We all were the first time. So was I.’ It was the gruff voice of Guru, the grizzled old kite.‘You, you were scared?’ I asked him, incredulously.

‘Yes, and if you’re not scared, you’re a fool,’ Guru said. ‘What you need to do is accept your fear and use it. Turn it into something positive. When you feel the wind in your face, don’t turn away from it. Face the wind and say, “Bring on your worst; I can overcome it, because I was born to fly!” Turn your face to the wind, and it will uplift you. Just remember – Open your heart and fly and always hold your head up high!’

‘Thank you Guru,’ I said. ‘I’ll try and remember that’ and soon dropped off to sleep.

Next morning, Vijay and Chutki took me out to the field again. There was a strong breeze blowing. I tried to remember what Guru had said. When Chutki threw me up and I felt the wind in my face, though I was scared and wanted to avoid it, I didn’t turn away and tried to brave the strong breeze.

Though I was thrown from side to side, I tried to look firmly ahead and not lose my balance. Then, all of a sudden, I felt a PUSH and it was me being carried up by gusts of air, as the wind blew strongly beneath me. As I was blown from side to side, I stayed upright and looked ahead and that’s when I realized I was flying.

‘Oh! Look, I’m flying!’ I shouted, ‘I’m on Cloud Nine!’

‘So is everyone else!’ Leher replied, laughing, as she, Guru and some other kites danced around the clouds nearby.

‘Oh, it’s all of you!’ I laughed back at them.

‘It’s not just us silly, look below,’ she said.

And there was the most amazing sight. Vijay and Chutki had tied many smaller tricolour kites to my string and were sending them up after me. As the wind blew and I rose higher and higher, the long tail of kites stretched after me like a tricoloured rainbow in the sky.

‘I was born to fly!’ I exulted, as Leher and I, 

and countless other kites, danced across the sky...

Text by Priyamvada, Images by Ajit Narayan

---

* Tiranga means Tricolour in Hindi and is used as a synonym for the Indian national flag, Ajgar means python, Leher means wave, and Guru is a learned teacher.

Happy to be a part of Indian television history,
As a member of Triguni on KBC!

Don't miss today's mega-prize winning episode!

Do check out this week's episodes of KBC,
I'm appearing as a member of the lifeline 'Triguni'.
We try and help contestants get some answers right,
And have fun while doing it, so don't forget to watch tonight!

Happy to share another good review of Animal Antics. This came out in The Book Review last year, but I've just discovered it now :-) 

http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-1466/2013/november/11/--.html

Flying High - Short story

Happy that my short story "Flying High" has been published on Mango Reader, in time for Independence Day. 

Flying High is the story of a brave little kite (called Tiranga) that overcomes its fear of flying with the help of its friends. 


Re-live your childhood kite-flying days and check out "Flying High" at: 
http://mangoreader.com/live_stories/53eb946869702d0365020000/Flying-High

With lovely illustrations, an audio version, and fun games, you might enjoy it as much as your child!

Happy to see another good review of Animal Antics. Take a  look at the review and interview at: http://www.saffrontree.org/2014/05/animal-antics.html.

New Delhi, World Book Fair - Meet the Author!
If you’re at the World Book Fair on Thursday, 20^th February, do stop by for an interactive meet-the-author session. I’ll be reading from Animal Antics at 4 pm at the Author’s Corner, Hall no 8, Pragati Maidan. The event’s organised by the Sahitya Akademi.

 

Eureka!

If you wish to gift my book of verse to someone dear,
You can also order it from right here:
http://www.eurekabookstore.com/index.php?route=product%2Fproduct&product_id=13105

Happy to see another good review of Animal Antics online. 
http://ovshake.blogspot.in/2013/12/animal-antics.html
Thought you might like to read it too :-)

Happy to see a positive review of Animal Antics online. Hope you'd like to read it too:
http://www.artsycraftsymom.com/2013/08/book-worm-friday-animal-antics.html

Ah! that new book feeling :-)

Animal Antics – how the book happened...

March 21^st was World Poetry Day, and it feels good that my first book Animal Antics – a book of fun and factual poetry – has come out in print around the same time.

Animal Antics combines my interest in wildlife and the environment with my love for poetry and wordplay. When I was a child, some of my favourite reads were The Jungle Book and Just So Stories of Rudyard Kipling, the humourous rhymes of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Hilaire Belloc and Roald Dahl, the wildlife expeditions of Gerald Durrell, the veterinary tales of James Herriot and books about the environment such as The Living Planet by Sir David Attenborough. Many Indian languages also have rhyming verses, about animals and birds or creatures we encounter in our daily lives, which are used to help children learn the alphabet and build a vocabulary. As a child I learnt Assamese as an additional language in school and one of my early Assamese text books had a series of rhyming couplets about each letter of the alphabet, which helped us learn new words and build a beginner’s vocabulary of the language. I still remember a few of those couplets and I’m sure all of the aforementioned works have (either consciously or unconsciously) influenced the writing of Animal Antics and to them I acknowledge my debt. 

Animal Antics is certainly inspired by the humourous genre of Nonsense Verse, with an important difference – though humourous, the verses in the book are not nonsensical. Each poem contains factual information about an animal or bird such as where it lives, what it eats, how it behaves and what it looks like – in a rhyming format that makes it easy for a parent or teacher to read aloud, or a child to learn, elocute or act out in a classroom or activity area. That’s why I call it a book of fun and factual poetry.

The original germ of the idea may have emerged in the year 2000 while I was working in my first job as a copy editor. I was one of a team of editors who were developing content for an educational website for school students in the US. One of our assignments was for each editor to write an article on an animal that had to include a few facts on the creature in a readable format for a target audience of young readers. I was assigned to write an article on a Polar Bear. The article was written in the required format and submitted and probably appeared as part of a larger set of articles written by the team. Later on, while playing around with the text in my spare time, unconsciously, perhaps, the factual article became a poem of 4 verses which contained the same facts within it. That poem was never published, though I thought it was fun to read - and possibly made it easier to recall some facts about the animal when compared to the factual article I was asked to write - but I didn’t think of doing anything more with the poem at the time.  

A couple of years later, and in a different job, I was teaching a batch of 10th grade students the science syllabus for their annual high school examination. They were a bunch of bright 15-year-olds and our discussions outside the classroom included popular fantasy novels of the time, which they enjoyed reading. I realized the teenagers were very aware of many fantastical creatures; however, to my surprise, they were not aware of some amazing real-life creatures that we encountered in their science textbook, as we discussed the chapter on evolution. Since I remembered growing up surrounded by books, of which a large Readers’ Digest Atlas of Animals was a favourite, as well as the animal expeditions of Gerald Durrell and Sir David Attenborough’s Living Planet, I found it odd that these bright young teenagers had such gaps in their understanding of the living world around them, particularly since there are several channels dedicated to wildlife programming on television, which were not around when I was at school. In fact television broadcasting in India hadn’t started when I was in my early years at school. I wondered how these teenagers were up-to-date on fantastical creatures or cartoon characters but not on living or endangered forms of life. Was it simply because information was presented in a fun and more engaging way through cartoons or fantasy novels? It made me wonder about whether I could write something informative and easily readable about animals and birds from around the world?

I recalled my Polar Bear poem written some years ago, searched through my incidental writings and found the poem. I thought about writing some more poems to put together a slim volume of fun and factual poetry. The idea was to create a basic introduction to some wild and endangered creatures, without intending to replace any textbook, though the book could become a learning resource that an innovative teacher or school could use in an English or Environmental Studies classroom. I felt it could also be read by any general reader interested in wildlife or anyone who enjoyed reading humourous verse.  A few more poems then began to emerge...

Now came the question of how to link the poems together? What would the structure of the book be? Could it be a book about animals on different continents, but that seemed like a large and unwieldy project unless I restricted the poems to a certain number of animals/birds on each continent. Trying to decide on a manageable number, so that the project didn’t seem too daunting to start with, I thought of an alphabetical sequence that could cover animals and birds from all over the world with a special focus on animals and birds in India and Asia. This allowed for a manageable number of 26 animals or birds and an introduction and conclusion summing up the environmental theme of the book – thus 28 poems in all.

Choosing which animals/birds to write about wasn’t easy. There were so many I wanted to write about. I knew I wanted to write about our nearest relatives, the great apes – Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Orangutans – so the animals for those three letters were a straightforward choice. There was also the question of whether some animals/birds were too familiar or not well known at all; how was one to strike a balance? In some cases the alphabetical arrangement provided a solution. For instance there aren’t very many creatures whose names begin with the letters Q, X, Y or Z, so the choices were fewer and easier to make. In the case of other letters it was tough to decide, but after some thought I concluded: “Well, if I feel I really want to write a poem about both these animals or birds whose names begin with the same letter of the alphabet, maybe I’ll just write one poem for this book and keep the other aside for another book, possibly a sequel that I can write later...” and thus the project started. There were many changes along the way. The original Polar bear poem didn’t make it into the final book, since – after the other poems were written – it seemed meant for an even younger audience and somehow I couldn’t bring myself to modify it. P for Polar Bear was replaced by P for Panda (as in Giant Panda) and there was a bit of shifting around in some cases.  For instance, I supposed it should be G for Giant Panda, but I wanted G for Gorilla and also wanted to write G for Giraffe. That conundrum was solved by retaining G for Gorilla in this book, shifting Giant Panda to the letter P (for Panda) and moving the poem on the Giraffe to the next book (More Animal Antics – a work in progress at this time). After juggling several other choices in the case of other letters, I had a structure in place for Animal Antics. The title of the book emerged as I thought of a phrase that would convey the poetic and humourous aspects of the book, while also not being too long or difficult to pronounce for young readers.

In order to ensure that the poems were factually as accurate as possible, I read up on each animal or bird (referring to an encyclopedia and online wildlife archives) and then wrote a poem a day through the month of August 2003, either before or after my classes with my batch of teenage students. I also discussed each poem with a friend who was kind enough to read each poem as I completed it and give me valuable feedback. Once all 26 poems were complete and I had the verses for the introduction and conclusion in place, I thought “I'm ready to send my manuscript to a publisher!”

Looking at the websites of the leading publishers in India, I could see some clearly stated they did not accept manuscript submissions in the genres of poetry or children’s literature, so there was no point trying there. Others didn’t specify that they did not accept poetry, so they seemed worth trying. Most publishers’ websites said their review process would take at least 2 months. I began by sending the manuscript to a leading publisher and waited to hear from them. Their reply was that their list was full for the year and they could not accept the manuscript. Undeterred, I sent it to another. A long set of queries from their editor came back in reply. I answered all the queries, but then never heard back from the editor, even after a reminder... Trying one publisher after another I came across a variety of responses and quite often no response at all... Sometimes a couple of months would pass by and then I’d send them a reminder but never hear back. In some cases they were prompt to respond, saying this was not a work that they wished to publish. I appreciated the promptness of these responses and moved on to try elsewhere. As this process of submitting the manuscript and receiving a negative reply (or no reply at all) extended over several years, and since I was also busy with work and would take up the process of submitting the manuscript and following up with editors intermittently, I realized I had approached possibly all the leading publishers in India, including the leading children’s publishers and the leading educational publishers. I’d also sent the manuscript to some niche publishers in India, literary agents both in India and abroad and had expended a considerable amount of time and energy with nothing to show for it. Working in the publishing industry myself, I understood that each book is an investment on the part of the publisher and it was possible that many publishers were reluctant to invest in a book of poetry, which they perceived might not sell. I did feel strongly, however, that Animal Antics was worth publishing and would surely find an audience once it was out in print and people got to know about its existence. I was determined not to give up on the idea. I also developed some additional learning material in the form of fun quizzes and vocabulary exercises to help young readers make the most of the learning aspects of the poems. I thought these might also be useful for teachers or parents who could use the supplementary material as part of a fun learning exercise.

During this time I had also commissioned an artist to create original water-colour illustrations to accompany the poems. It was a deliberate choice not to create cartoon-like illustrations but to create life-like images of the animal or bird in its natural habitat or displaying a characteristic behavior described in the poem. Reviewing what I had, I found I had a complete text, possibly sufficient illustrations, and additional material which could be given away as free downloads for teachers or parents to use as additional activity material to reinforce the learning in the book. The fact box element titled ‘In a nutshell’ that accompanies each poem and provides additional scientific information also emerged, as I thought about creating each two-page chapter as a holistic unit that consisted of a poem, an additional factual component and a further learning activity. Now I just had to figure out how to put it all together. I then began to think of self-publishing as an option, as I realised publishing solutions providers had begun operations in India. 

More online research followed and after attending a self-publishing seminar at the World Book Fair in Delhi in 2012, I found a professional self-publisher. Their team carried out all the production tasks over the course of 2012 and the book finally emerged in its present form in 2013. From an initial draft in August 2003 to a published work in February 2013 - it took almost 10 years for the book to see the light of day!  

While meant to be an informative and fun book for young readers, albeit with a serious message, I believe Animal Antics could appeal to readers of any age with an interest in wildlife. I do hope you enjoy reading it. Finally, I think of it as a fun and whimsical book that I enjoyed writing; so much so, that there’s a sequel on its way. I welcome your comments and feedback, which I shall try and incorporate in my next book, More Animal Antics, coming soon!