CHENNAI: Welcome to the jungle, I’m Karadi the bear. Stories and adventures with you, I will share…’ For a whole generation that grew up listening to Karadi Tales, these lyrics instantly conjure up visuals of the fuzzy brown bear sporting a grey goatee, a blue Nehru cap and a green stole around his neck and the antelopes, alligators, monkeys and birds grooving cheerfully to his tune in the backdrop.
While it seems like the beloved mascot had just begun his storytelling journey, he will turn 25 on June 27.
The journey traces back to 1996 when Shoba Viswanath, CP Viswanath and Narayan Parasuram the founders of Karadi Tales driven by sheer determination to create a space for Indian culture in mainstream children’s literature, launched the independent children’s publishing house in Chennai.
Karadi Tales has demonstrated versatility and range in terms of the formats in which it brings stories audiobooks, picture books, chapter books, animated books, to even a movie (Goopi Gawaiya Bagha Bajaiya in 2019).
A legacy to cherish
Offering us a quick recap, the publishing director, Shoba says, "Our audiobooks were narrated by some of the most esteemed personalities in Indian cinema, theatre, and later, even sport. We recorded two stories with Rahul Dravid. When we met him for the recording, he said that he was tired of the Karadi Rhymes because it was the one thing his son played on loop. It was a double-edged compliment. Many have said this to us.”
Naseeruddin Shah, Saeed Jaffery, Usha Uthup, Girish Karnad, Gulzar, Vidya Balan, and Nandita Das, are a few other personalities who’ve lent their voices to Karadi Rhymes. Complementing the narrations were exquisite background scores created by professional musicians, often inspired by classical ragas. Narayan, the creative director, gives us a sneak peek into the recording process.
“Earlier, musicians and narrators used to record live in the studio. Now, everything happens in bits and pieces. Anybody’s voice can be enhanced. In fact, the post-production takes more time compared to those days,” he says. Concurring, Shoba adds, “We always prefer a human touch to the audiobooks. Say you want to incorporate the sound of a flute, it could be from a flute or a man’s breath. How many of us pay attention to those tiny details?”
An inspiring path
The year 2010 saw the launch of Karadi Path, a social innovation enterprise that created an English environment for classrooms, rich in Indian experiences and culture, to help children learn the language through a process of discovery.
The unique methodology makes use of their books to create language-learning curriculums. This took Karadi’s books to 4,500 schools across India, and over one million children.
A decade later, in June 2021, Karadi Path won the London Book Fair’s International Excellence Award for the category - Educational Learning Resources. Viswanath, CEO of Karadi Path, says, “To me, happiness is to hold a conversation in English with children from tribal schools. Even in the lockdown, Karadi Path provided teachers with short learning videos and mentor-led resources on an Android app to set up community learning camps and mini-schools in their neighbourhoods in open fields, garages, deserted places of worship, the narrow by-lanes of villages; teachers began implementing the literacy programme, a few even created makeshift classes in villages with no digital access by playing the audiobooks and songs on their car’s stereo system.”
A big bear hug
It hasn’t always been easy, but Karadi Tales regularly found its way. The 2020 pandemic saw bookstores shut down for an extended period, and the world came to a standstill. But Karadi Tales introduced a live series on Facebook called Katha With Karadi. Lasting over six seasons, this initiative regularly crossed 10,000 views per episode in the first few seasons.
In October 2020, Karadi Tales also brought out the PARI series in collaboration with People’s Archive of Rural India, founded and led by veteran journalist P Sainath.
These were stories of triumph — of children who participate cheerfully in civic issues, athletes who power past their disabilities, citizens who demand their right to be heard — and an attempt to give these voices a platform, and address the serious dearth of children’s books set in non-urban locations.
The team is currently prepping up for the big day. “We’ve been sharing snippets of Karadi Tales’ journey on our official social media platforms to interact with our patrons. We’ve also been having competitions and workshops to entertain adults and children. On June 27, we will be launching our new podcast called The Little Book Makers, featuring Naseeruddin Shah in the first episode. It’s aimed at an adult audience. It’s about conversations between illustrators, animators, writers, and narrators. It takes them behind the creative process. That aside, there will be a Zoom birthday party for children, and a day-long sale from 10 am to 6 pm,” says Shoba.
Here’s wishing and hoping that Karadi, the bear, continues to be on the lookout for stories that are magical, meaningful, and memorable all at once.
For details, visit: www.karaditales.com. Or Karadi Tales on Facebook, Instagram
MILESTONES
In 2020, Karadi Tales won the London Book Fair International Excellence Award for Audiobook Publisher of the Year. Its books have been featured in various prestigious lists such as White Ravens, International Board on Books for Young People, the New York Public Library’s Best Children’s Books, USBBY’s Outstanding International Book list, and more.
Several international publishers have picked up titles from the Karadi Tales catalogue of picture books and have them translated to make them available to children of the world. Their books are now available in several foreign editions, including Korean, Mandarin, Bahasa, German, French and Spanish.
Through the Dreaming Fingers imprint, Karadi Tales was the first publisher to bring the beloved Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar to India – this tactile book with die-cut pages, specially prepared materials and Braille letters is also suitable for visually impaired children.