Noon Chai and a Story
by Aditi Rao and illustrated by Ghazal Qadri
“Noon Chai and a Story” by Aditi Rao and illustrated by Ghazal Qadri. Published by Tulika. A story from a village in Kashmir about the love for books and what they mean to those who don’t have easy access to them.
Amiya is a little girl who lives in the village of Gurez located close to the line of control in Kashmir. An uncle from far away visits her school one day and shows them a book. He tells the children about libraries and asks them to collect books. Amiya is enamoured by the books. She yearns to touch the book that uncle has left. There are no books in their village.
As Amiya wonders how she can get more books for their library, her Deidi (grandmother) offers to help. Amiya comes up with a plan. Deidi knows a lot of stories and her sister is good at drawing. So Amiya can write Deidi’s stories and her sister can make the accompanying drawings. They can then stitch the pages together to make a book. All this over sessions of the famed noon Chai of Kashmir. What are the stories that Deidi tells Amiya? Does Amiya get around to making books? Does her dream of having a school library come true?
The story is full of warmth and I enjoyed reading this with my seven year old. It gave us a glimpse into the lives of the villagers in this conflict ridden area. Also a mention of how partition of India affected the people. We had already read about partition earlier in “Mukand and Riaz”.
The book is a part of the “Word Bird” series of books by Tulika. The word bird books feature traditional as well as contemporary stories from different regions. The unfamiliar words from different regional languages are explained with the help of word birds in the pages of the book giving a charming touch to the story being narrated. This was our fourth book set in Kashmir after “Mazzoo Mazzoo”, “Sadiq wants to Stitch” and “Gulla and the Hangul”. The book is apt for children aged 5+.
Where to buy from?
The publishers Tulika books here.
An independent indie bookstore, Funky Rainbow, from where I buy many of my books.