A Tale of Tales- Ramendra Kumar

Winner of the recent Sankalpa Samman award for his contribution to children's literature, Ramendra Kumar, writes about his foray into writing.

I started writing satire and poetry   in my college days and continued my literary pursuits after I joined Rourkela Steel Plant. My creative endeavours received a modest degree of success.

When my daughter Ankita was four, my son Aniket happened. My wife Madhavi is working in the same Steel Plant as me. Her hands were naturally full taking care of the new born.

 “You write satire and poetry don’t you? Then why can’t you tell Ankita stories and put her to sleep, while I concentrate on Aniket,” Madhavi told me one day. To her, shifting from satire/poetry to children’s fiction was as simple as moving from the universe of the boiled to the planet of the poached egg.

Anyways, I seriously took up her advice and started thinking up little tales to tell my precious one. I don’t know whether Ankita liked the plot more or my antics, but she lapped up my stories and my confidence increased. Soon it became a tradition which continued even after Aniket, grew up and doubled the size of my audience. While spinning my yarns, the biggest challenge was matching their completely divergent tastes. While Ankita loved the ‘once upon a time….and they lived happily ever after’ tales of pretty princesses and chivalrous princes, Aniket, my in-house Rambo, whose guru was Bruce Lee, wanted unadulterated action – the gorier the better. The ‘sleight of mind’ I indulged on a ‘nightly’  basis to ensure the delight of  my esteemed ‘customers’, I am sure, sharpened my  literary skills and helped me become a more effective writer.

Our daily tryst with tales created indelible memories. Sitting on the bed, on long summer nights, cold winter evenings and rain drenched twilights we used to laugh, jump, sing, dance and  sometimes shed a tear or two as we explored the world of magic and mystery, action and  adventure, sentiments and values. The tales created a gossamer fabric of trust and togetherness which, I am sure, we shall always cherish.

 Many of these yarns found their way to the laptop and from there to the publisher’s desk.  The tales started getting published and thus began my journey into the idyllic world of children.

Ankita and Aniket have been my greatest fans and harshest critics.  Aniket was the more ‘in your face’ of the two. He had only two words to critique my tale – Chaat or Mast! Chaat meant it had to be trashed and Mast indicated the tale was to be sent pronto  to the publisher. Luckily the number of ‘Mast’ were far, far more than the number of ‘Chaat’ and hence I have been able to notch up a healthy score of   30 books.

To know more about Ramendra Kumar visit www.ramendra.in 

This piece was created exclusively for the December  2016 issue of Kahani Takbak newsletter.

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