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ENID BLYTON, MORE POWER TO YOUR PEN

There is a certain convention that dogs a lot of popular children's fiction after Enid Blyton. There must be a multiplicity of protagonists - the Famous Five and the Secret Seven series, after all, had brothers, sisters - and a dog. The children then have either to be separated from their parents for a while, or thrown into contact with interesting people or situations. This convention doesn't necessarily hold good abroad - even though Harry Potter is a twist on the conventional school adventure genre. In India, however, most children haven't read beyond Enid Blyton, so Indian writers for children who want to be popular use her tried and trusted formula.

Ranjit Lall's Bossman series falls easily into this. He introduces us to the Naths, an older brother, Aloke, a pretty 12-year-old sister, Shalu, the beauty of the family with her snub nose and a talent for painting and the twins Tara and Shama, 9, fondly referred to as the Toofani Twins. And then there is Bossman, their beloved bulldog, who has a habit of running off with odd articles of clothing, regardless of who they belong to. In fact this habit of his kicks off or concludes many of the adventures. Like his running off with Aloke's binoculars sets the adventure of the Golden Munias in motion, or his running off with a cellphone ends the story of the Blind Princess happily.

There are three adventures in this book: Bossman and the Golden Munias, Bossman and the Beach Bums Dogs and Bossman and the Blind Princess. Of these, the Golden Munias is probably the weakest, even though it focuses on Lall's prime interest, birdwatching. Weak because he shifts around trying to figure out who he's going to tell the story through. Finally he settles rather self consciously on the twins. 'Ah, and what can be said of the toofani twins, as they were called by their rotund paan-chewing maid Lakshmi (who would willingly lay down their life for them). Tara and Shama were nine years old; tough, solid little girls with wild curls and snub noses (like Shalini's).'

The story of the Golden Munia is the least adventurous of the three stories - though here it must be pointed out that Lall's adventurous children are rather less adventurous than Enid Blyton's, simply because he is anchored to his four square Delhi existence. Indian children, however must they run around, just do not get into all those kinds of adventures that firang children are allowed to get up to. So the Nath children's lives are ruled by their parents, their maid and chaperoned by their dog.

The only time they are allowed to get away is when they go to stay with the blind princess Rohini in her fantastic palace. Of the three, this is probably the most exciting of the stories since from the children's point of view, it does have possibilities for real danger and excitement.

None of the stories are long enough to be taxing or perhaps distract children from their homework. One would have liked them to be longer and meatier. However the fact that most children would rather watch television than do anything else is perhaps a strong deterrent - though we have it on good authority that a lot of children have read through The Goblet of Fire and do read Enid Blyton who is certainly longer.

Lall's language is easy to read; though a little description bound. He gets tied down trying to establish the maid, the mother and the children and Bossman, somehow for all his efforts, never quite becomes a real solid bulldog. Of course, this is probably just quibbling. Most children deprived of Enid Blyton would probably be happy enough to flip through Bossman Quite possibly if Lall cut himself free from his mentor and gave himself more time, a fairly memorable Indian children's classic would emerge.

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