Monday, Jan 5, 2009
The Simians of South Block and the Yum Yum Piglets by Ranjit Lal
- Anjana BasuAnjana Basu taught English Literature, briefly, in Calcutta University. She writes poetry, stories, features in the local newspapers and in Harmony and Travel Plus. She has had a book of short stories published by Orient Longman, India. The BBC had broadcast one of her short stories and her poems have featured in an anthology brought out by Penguin India. In America she has been published in The Wolfhead Quarterly, Gowanus, The Blue Moon Review, and Recursive Angel, to name a few. Harper Collins India brought out her novel Curses In Ivory and IndiaInk brought out Black Tongue, her second novel, last year.
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Book and Author Name:The Simians of South Block and the Yum Yum Piglets by Ranjit Lal
Pages 136
price: Rs 195 (INR)
Publisher: Roli Books Pvt Ltd.
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Monkey Business!
Ranjit Lal has made quite a name for himself with his books for both adults and children, most of them with a subtle underlying environmental message. The Simians of South Block and the Yum Yum Piglets is geared to appeal across the generations and takes a dig at the powers that be and their fascination with retail. News of monkey attacks are fairly frequent in Delhi – monkeys get into airports, steal from houses and attack people causing all kinds of chaos.
This is the story of a complex network of animals in a National Park whose way of life is being threatened by a batch of hoodlum simians deliberately introduced into their environment by a group of politicians in Delhi who want to shut down the Park and replace it with a more profitable mall complex.
Coincidentally, the animals in the Park are having a leadership problem – their head predator Sher Bahadoor has gone off into the mountains to become a hermit because of a humiliating photograph that is being circulated on the internet. Since predators are highest in the animal pecking order, there is a tug of war in process which is being executed with all the chaos of Parliamentary meetings.
The monkeys are imported to cause more chaos, but surprise, surprise, they miss their comfortable life in the South Block and want a way back to the city. Totally at a loss in natural surroundings, they kidnap a family of piglets and proceed to hold them to ransom. They will release the piglets if they are guaranteed a free ride back to the South Block.
Throw in the fact that the Park Warden’s daughter is also being used as a bargaining coin and you have some idea of how amusingly complex the book is.
A fast paced easy read, the book takes us through the ups and downs and cross currents of what follows. Lal throws in some acute observations – he has a name for having his notebook with him on the ready whenever he goes into the forests.
Characterizations are amusing and go against what one normally expects from say a leopard, or even a crocodile.
Children are likely to enjoy it without reading too much into the animal’s behavior and get a clear message that when man interferes with the natural world, however innocently, he tends to disrupt the fragile balance of the environment.
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