Yakshas who command clouds and are a kind of forgotten being in Indian mythology, a gardener with a mission to raise blue lotuses and a thousand-year-old girl and an apple tree, not to mention a river crocodile shaped earring which teleports — all these are the elements that make Shalini Srinivasan’s Gangamma’s Gharial so fascinating. Most children in modern India have forgotten their mythology simply because grandmothers are no longer on tap to tell them stories. Srinivasan uses these old stories to create a modern tale of adventure with teleporting and environmental concerns thrown in.
The tale is a clash between two sets of thought — that of the yakshas who are convinced that their claustrophobic inward existence is right and that of Gangamma and the gardeners who believe in the beauty of the outer world, mud, ooze and all and who are willing to give their lives to the cause. It is also the tale of a rebellion because 12 breakaway yakshas kickstart the whole thing.
Srinivasan has an eye for detail, the aromas of the Giripuram bazaar where Gangamma sells the flowers that she grows, the diamond teeth of the crocodile shaped earring, the rivalry between the gardeners. Gangamma is feisty and outspoken much like many crabbity old ladies that we know who are determined to prove a point. The girl Ondu is a match for her which I suppose, given the fact that she is a thousand odd, gives her the right.
The story could have been a tad longer — certainly the internal squabbles of the yakshas needed fleshing out as did their essential nature — the one in Kalidas’ Meghdoot was certain an external being.
Occasionally too, the teleporting becomes too much of a good thing because the interludes tend to hold up the story while the link to the gods and the rebellious ones is just hinted at. What sets the book apart from the rest is the fact that it takes Indian mythology and creates an adventure for modern children — and a talking teleporting earring definitely puts a new twist on good old fashioned magic.
Anjana Basu is the author of Rhythms of Darkness
