KOCHI: For many millenials, their childhood memories are closely intertwined with the life of Harry Potter — a wizard in a magical school in Scotland. For your’s truly, however, it was a talking cat who showed me a world beyond my reality. It was not the castle, but the orchards and rivers of mittayi (candy) that brought me closer to imagining the impossible.
My father gifted me one of Leela’s books — one with an unassuming cover of a crow and a squirrel having an invigorating conversation on the cove. The book was, to my surprise, filled with countless stories — small and large. I spent many days and nights reading and rereading all of them.
I could see everything written in the book unfolding in front of me. Kurinji poocha climbing trees, lying idle, complaining to the cows, escaping from snakes. Crows cleaning village roads with a broom and whining about having to wake up early, local teashops ran by animals, parrot teachers. As you can guess, ‘Mrigangalude Gramam’ was my favourite story of the lot. It was also the largest among all the short stories. Pages filled with a bunch of animals, trying to run their village without humans. But the bitter ending always gave me a shock.
How can a world without humans be anything less than paradise! Sumangala’s stories, especially Mittayi Pothi, was different from many children’s stories I heard during my childhood. There are no ‘moral of the story’. Instead, they inspire your imagination. Leela Namboothiripad, better known by her penname Sumangala, is a quintessential grandmother in thick glasses and white settu mund, filling our childhood with magic. She weaves a world filled with innocence and a pinch of reality.
She started writing stories for her daughter, who needed a new one every day to fall asleep. It was easy at first, she read stories from the books in her library. After they ran out, she started making stories. The cat in her home, the cows in the shed, the crows that came to visit and the snakes in the yard — they all live through Sumangala’s tales.
Leela Namboothiripad, the beloved storyteller of Kerala, passed away last week. She inspired imagination in many generations of children with her characters — squirrels and ‘kurinji poocha’. She stopped writing in 2018, at the age of 79, and decided to spend her time reading. Her last book, Unnikalkku Krishnakathakal, was published in 2016. She has penned 37 titles, 23 of them for children. Some of her notable works are Mithayi Pothi, Neypayasam, Manjadikkuru, Ee Katha Kettitundo, and Rahasyam. She wrote the Panchatantra in prose while working as Public Relations Officer at Kalamandalam. She has also translated the Valmiki Ramayana into Malayalam from Sanskrit and compiled the Pachamalayala Nikhandu.