CHENNAI: Nila nila odi va...a song that grandfathers sing to put their toddlers to sleep, one that mothers sing while feeding their child, and a catchy tune we unknowingly hum when we look at the bright full moon. Beyond the traditional narration, this Tamil rhyme is now getting a facelift in the form of an audiobook, an idea initiated by T4Tales.
An independent publishing house specialising in creating interactive board books for children in various Indian languages since 2015, T4Tales was born following a mother’s concern for her daughter’s screen time and a lack of non-digital content available for children to learn more about their mother tongue.
This year, they are publishing two books, including Nila Nila by musicians Gurupriya Atreya and Vedanth Bhardwaj, a retelling of the popular old Tamil lullaby about the moon. Their second Tamil publication, it is available for pre-ordering and will be released by the end of the month on all major streaming platforms like Spotify, YouTube Music, and Apple Music.
“When we, Gurupriya and I, started working on the song, we did not think we would add four more lines to it. We made it into a full song with a pallavi and charanam while adding a lot more. You learn a lot about languages when you transliterate them, let it be the conjunctions or the etymology of every word. So it is definitely going to be really helpful,” says Vedanth.
The vocals of Gurupriya and Vedanth is supported by the illustrations by Vaishnavi Giri. “As someone who has grown up hearing the older version of the song, to add new layers so that children today can see that song differently was one of the biggest motivational factors for me to work on this book,” says Vaishnavi. “The children today, as we live in different parts of India, don’t get to read and write the language in which we speak at home. Transliteration is a great tool in such cases because they already understand it, they just can’t read it on their own,” she adds.
The other book is titled Kahani Chamkeeli — the third book in the Kahaani series, after Kahaani Purani and Kahaani Rangeeli. All the books have the original native script and the regional language’s English transliteration.
Narration beyond scripts
A widespread sentiment among people raised or raising children abroad is how they have often felt quite detached from their culture and language. This becomes a woe especially for parents who struggle to persuade their children as they grow up into bi-cultural or even third-culture young adults. To bridge this gap, Pridhee Kapoor Gupta came up with the idea of creating interactive books that not only have audio additions but also transliterations that help parents unfamiliar with their native language scripts. Coming from a molecular biology background, Pridhee stumbled upon the idea after understanding the market’s need for more accommodating books and started T4Tales.
With teaching as her day job, Pridhee has collaborated on and published close to eight children’s books. Their Kahaani series, illustrated by Alicia Souza, touches upon various mythological and cultural stories. “It’s always been such a lovely initiative, and coming from someone who does not speak their native language, I have always felt like I missed out. So, this is one way I feel like I can contribute, and the best way I know is through drawing,” says Alicia on working on the Kahaani series. “I love that my son loves them, too. It’s so fun to see him pick them out when we have so many other books on the bookshelf, but he picks it out even without knowing I have worked on them,” she adds.
The works published by T4Tales not only create a better bond within families but also invoke a sense of nostalgia for parents as they recreate the age-old story time with the grandparents. With interactive boards included in the books, children can explore the storyline themselves.
‘Nila Nila’ is available for pre-order on t4tales.com and Amazon.