A few months ago, I received an enigmatic SMS. ‘Geronimon is a mouse. Thea is his sister. I love him.’ It was from my father-in-law’s phone. A second of fuzziness later, it became clear. I mean, obviously. This was not a message from my father-in-law but from the person who was always making off with his phone to play mysterious games, the very same person who was also always attempting to adopt unwilling pets (ants, squirrels, tomcats); in other words, the nephew.
I went back to doing whatever it was I was doing. A couple of hours later, I got another SMS. This time it was more explicit: ‘Kaki, can you find me a Geronimon book?’
Buy me a book
Do note the moment: it is night, autumn in Delhi, a fragrant breeze is doing the rounds, my window is open, I am reading in bed. My happiness is infinite. Like all other yet offspring-less people of my generation, the next generation, in my book, refers specifically to the nephew and nieces. So this is, to me, a gold star from the next generation, a medal, a badge of honour. In fact, I could not remember being happier in a long time.
I prodded the spouse and showed him the message. ‘Can you believe it?’ I asked. ‘Of all the things in all the world, he asks me to find a book. This means he knows me. Like, he really knows me. He is six years old and he gets me like no one else does.’
‘Well, duh,’ said the spouse. ‘The whole world and their in-law knows that if they need a book, they should check with you. You have probably already bought it.’
Snark notwithstanding, my happiness remains undimmed.
How it all began
After all, I can even claim some credit for this.
When the nephew was one and had curly hair, he was, for instance, allowed to pull out all the books from our bookshelves to build a mountain of books.
When he was two and still refusing to speak – the best of speech therapists had been lined up – I would read to him from the books on my bedside table and he would point out the passages he preferred.
When he was three and speaking a great great deal, while visiting from Moscow, he demanded a book about parrots. Nothing else would do. Together we went through every single book in the local Starmark and – wonder of wonders – we did find a book featuring an opinionated parrot called Polly, who for various reasons, shut her beak and refused to speak. Finally, when she did speak, it was in rhyme.
At four, he could spend hours reading gibberish out loud from books, with appropriate expressions and pauses.
At five, he finally learnt to read.
Helping me with my book
Six was a turning point year. He spent a week with us in Calcutta. He would read an old Enid Blyton he found in our study aloud at bedtime – and invariably, we would all three get extremely hungry when the food bits came. It was about these kids on a farm, and like all Enid Blyton books, there were many high teas and a great deal of cake and cottage cheese and ham sandwiches. One evening on this trip, he saw me sitting blankly in front of my computer. I was looking at the screen – but, in fact, I was in Jaisalmer, where the book I was writing at the time, was stuck. ‘What are you thinking, Kaki?’ he asked, looking up from a game he was playing on my phone.
‘No, just the book,’ I told him honestly. ‘I’m a little stuck.’
‘You need some help?’ he asked, seriously.
‘Umm,’ I said, ‘Sure. You want to write this bit for me? It’s about Jaisalmer.’
‘Yeah okay,’ he replied immediately, resuming the game. ‘I’ll write it. Just tell me the spellings.’
It suddenly became possible for me to deal with the night in Jaisalmer.
‘Kaki,’ he asked after a point, to the music of my typing, ‘But who is Jai Singh Kher?’
Of all the debts that writers owe, there is no debt more worthy than the one owed to a person who had actually offered to help write their book in that moment – the blue evening when all seems lost, the afternoon when it is impossible to believe that the next day might actually end the drought of words. Therefore, the very next morning, I started hunting far and wide for the mouse book. No luck. Bookstore clerks had not heard of Geronimon (or his sister Thea). I called up my nephew and asked if such a book actually existed. He said he had seen them with his own eyes at his friend Aditya’s house. Aditya, who had a dog whom he doused with some not-so-nice powder. Aditya had three of the books.
How the right books were found
Finally I called my friend M, who is a children’s book editor. She said, ‘Maybe he means Geronimo Stilton? It’s the pseudonym of the bestselling author Elisabetta Dami. The cartoon has become extremely popular in India. The books are charming – they use all kinds of fonts and stuff.’
M was, of course, right. I found the Geronimo Stilton books online and amazon-ed one to him. It was called Rumble in the Jungle.
A couple of days later, the book was received.
On the third day, I got another SMS. ‘Finished. Can you now send me Save The White Whale?’
‘Okay,’ I reply. ‘I will.’
The next day, my father-in-law calls me. After our regular chat, he asks me, ‘Have you ordered his book? He is asking me every hour if the book is already on its way.’
I laugh and remember to flipkart it that night.
Buy me another book
Five days have barely elapsed when the new name floats my way, this time through my father-in-law again. The Karate Mouse. By when can I send it?
‘By his birthday,’ I say.
The next day, his advocate called again. ‘His birthday is a bit far away. Maybe you could send it as a Puja present to him from me. Use my card?’
‘I know what it feels like to desire a book,’ I tell my father-in-law. ‘I’ll send it.’
‘Please, please, Mouse in Space?’
‘Birthday!’
‘Geronimo Stilton, Secret Agent?’
‘New Year’s and not a day sooner!’
Meanwhile, now that I was in the know, in every bookstore I could spot the Geronimo Stilton and Thea Stilton books in towering piles. Apparently they were the rage everywhere. Class Two kids across India were swearing by Geronimo Stilton, the mild-mannered journalist who works in The Rodent’s Gazette in New Mouse City and gets dragged into all sorts of adventures quite without wanting to.
A month later, my father-in-law was back in Calcutta, and my nephew spoke to me from his mother’s phone. ‘Can you send me a hardcover book this time?’ he asked, even as his mother tried to shush him. He had to learn to say hello before commencing negotiations, at least, she told him. ‘The hardcover books are better,’ he continued.
‘You must know,’ I tell him, ‘hardcover books are more expensive. You must also know that I am a struggling writer. I am poor. I can’t send you a book a day, especially if your tastes get more and more expensive everyday.’
There was a second’s pause.
‘You’re not that poor,’ he replied eventually.
I sent him his hardback book. And he’s right of course. How can I be that poor? There are still, in this world, a hundred million zillion squillion books I have not yet read.
Devapriya Roy is the author of The Vague Woman’s Handbook and The Weight Loss Club. Her new book, scheduled for May 2015, called The Heat and Dust Project: Pilot, is co-written with husband Saurav Jha and features, among other places, Jaisalmer. Roy also has a fourteen-year-old niece who reads voraciously and will star in the next piece in this series.
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I went back to doing whatever it was I was doing. A couple of hours later, I got another SMS. This time it was more explicit: ‘Kaki, can you find me a Geronimon book?’
Buy me a book
Do note the moment: it is night, autumn in Delhi, a fragrant breeze is doing the rounds, my window is open, I am reading in bed. My happiness is infinite. Like all other yet offspring-less people of my generation, the next generation, in my book, refers specifically to the nephew and nieces. So this is, to me, a gold star from the next generation, a medal, a badge of honour. In fact, I could not remember being happier in a long time.
I prodded the spouse and showed him the message. ‘Can you believe it?’ I asked. ‘Of all the things in all the world, he asks me to find a book. This means he knows me. Like, he really knows me. He is six years old and he gets me like no one else does.’
‘Well, duh,’ said the spouse. ‘The whole world and their in-law knows that if they need a book, they should check with you. You have probably already bought it.’
Snark notwithstanding, my happiness remains undimmed.
How it all began
After all, I can even claim some credit for this.
When the nephew was one and had curly hair, he was, for instance, allowed to pull out all the books from our bookshelves to build a mountain of books.
When he was two and still refusing to speak – the best of speech therapists had been lined up – I would read to him from the books on my bedside table and he would point out the passages he preferred.
When he was three and speaking a great great deal, while visiting from Moscow, he demanded a book about parrots. Nothing else would do. Together we went through every single book in the local Starmark and – wonder of wonders – we did find a book featuring an opinionated parrot called Polly, who for various reasons, shut her beak and refused to speak. Finally, when she did speak, it was in rhyme.
At four, he could spend hours reading gibberish out loud from books, with appropriate expressions and pauses.
At five, he finally learnt to read.
Helping me with my book
Six was a turning point year. He spent a week with us in Calcutta. He would read an old Enid Blyton he found in our study aloud at bedtime – and invariably, we would all three get extremely hungry when the food bits came. It was about these kids on a farm, and like all Enid Blyton books, there were many high teas and a great deal of cake and cottage cheese and ham sandwiches. One evening on this trip, he saw me sitting blankly in front of my computer. I was looking at the screen – but, in fact, I was in Jaisalmer, where the book I was writing at the time, was stuck. ‘What are you thinking, Kaki?’ he asked, looking up from a game he was playing on my phone.
‘No, just the book,’ I told him honestly. ‘I’m a little stuck.’
‘You need some help?’ he asked, seriously.
‘Umm,’ I said, ‘Sure. You want to write this bit for me? It’s about Jaisalmer.’
‘Yeah okay,’ he replied immediately, resuming the game. ‘I’ll write it. Just tell me the spellings.’
It suddenly became possible for me to deal with the night in Jaisalmer.
‘Kaki,’ he asked after a point, to the music of my typing, ‘But who is Jai Singh Kher?’
Of all the debts that writers owe, there is no debt more worthy than the one owed to a person who had actually offered to help write their book in that moment – the blue evening when all seems lost, the afternoon when it is impossible to believe that the next day might actually end the drought of words. Therefore, the very next morning, I started hunting far and wide for the mouse book. No luck. Bookstore clerks had not heard of Geronimon (or his sister Thea). I called up my nephew and asked if such a book actually existed. He said he had seen them with his own eyes at his friend Aditya’s house. Aditya, who had a dog whom he doused with some not-so-nice powder. Aditya had three of the books.
How the right books were found
Finally I called my friend M, who is a children’s book editor. She said, ‘Maybe he means Geronimo Stilton? It’s the pseudonym of the bestselling author Elisabetta Dami. The cartoon has become extremely popular in India. The books are charming – they use all kinds of fonts and stuff.’
M was, of course, right. I found the Geronimo Stilton books online and amazon-ed one to him. It was called Rumble in the Jungle.
A couple of days later, the book was received.
On the third day, I got another SMS. ‘Finished. Can you now send me Save The White Whale?’
‘Okay,’ I reply. ‘I will.’
The next day, my father-in-law calls me. After our regular chat, he asks me, ‘Have you ordered his book? He is asking me every hour if the book is already on its way.’
I laugh and remember to flipkart it that night.
Buy me another book
Five days have barely elapsed when the new name floats my way, this time through my father-in-law again. The Karate Mouse. By when can I send it?
‘By his birthday,’ I say.
The next day, his advocate called again. ‘His birthday is a bit far away. Maybe you could send it as a Puja present to him from me. Use my card?’
‘I know what it feels like to desire a book,’ I tell my father-in-law. ‘I’ll send it.’
‘Please, please, Mouse in Space?’
‘Birthday!’
‘Geronimo Stilton, Secret Agent?’
‘New Year’s and not a day sooner!’
Meanwhile, now that I was in the know, in every bookstore I could spot the Geronimo Stilton and Thea Stilton books in towering piles. Apparently they were the rage everywhere. Class Two kids across India were swearing by Geronimo Stilton, the mild-mannered journalist who works in The Rodent’s Gazette in New Mouse City and gets dragged into all sorts of adventures quite without wanting to.
A month later, my father-in-law was back in Calcutta, and my nephew spoke to me from his mother’s phone. ‘Can you send me a hardcover book this time?’ he asked, even as his mother tried to shush him. He had to learn to say hello before commencing negotiations, at least, she told him. ‘The hardcover books are better,’ he continued.
‘You must know,’ I tell him, ‘hardcover books are more expensive. You must also know that I am a struggling writer. I am poor. I can’t send you a book a day, especially if your tastes get more and more expensive everyday.’
There was a second’s pause.
‘You’re not that poor,’ he replied eventually.
I sent him his hardback book. And he’s right of course. How can I be that poor? There are still, in this world, a hundred million zillion squillion books I have not yet read.
Devapriya Roy is the author of The Vague Woman’s Handbook and The Weight Loss Club. Her new book, scheduled for May 2015, called The Heat and Dust Project: Pilot, is co-written with husband Saurav Jha and features, among other places, Jaisalmer. Roy also has a fourteen-year-old niece who reads voraciously and will star in the next piece in this series.