The Hindu (Thiruvananthapuram)
Reality bytes served with laughter
The Couch Potato Who Said Ouch and Other Funny Stories by Khyrunnisa A is a delightful collection of stories
Vijayakumar aka Kumar is a oneman army, when it comes to serving nongu juice. Glasses are washed in no time, a light brown liquid, sharbat (syrup), is poured into them, followed by spoonfuls of nongu (ice apple or palmyra palm fruit) juice from a huge steel tumbler. He mixes it well and hands over the glass to a customer waiting in a queue. In between, he packs the juice in small pouches for those who want it as a takeaway. It is a regular day at work for Kumar at his nondescript juice shop, Vinayaka, at Aryasala in the city.
The wobbly, plump, translucent kernels of the fruit are ideal
Did you hear about the couch potato that said ouch? If one is a couch potato for long, joints in the body are bound to say ouch. But this is about the tuber that said ouch when a couch potato sat on it.
Blending humour and everyday scenes in a typical household with children, Khyrunnisa A spins a story about a potato that went missing into a couch and its subsequent adventures.
The 20 short stories in her new book, The Couch Potato Who Said Ouch and Other Funny Stories (Red Panda), have her characteristic blend of humour, adventure and facts.
At her home, Khyrunnisa is hard at work, giving the final touches to three books that are likely to be released by the yearend or by early 2025.
Talking about her new book, she says each story reflects her concerns about certain issues such as the environment, the proliferation of screens in our lives, popularity of fast food and the pressure of societal expectations on children. These stories were first published in Dindima,a monthly for children.
Khyrunnisa creates a screenfree world where children
Dplay, read, go on picnics, and spent time with their families.
“It is possible for children to have fun without gadgets and screens if we encourage them to spend less time on their gadgets,” she says.
So, in ‘Missing Photo’, the mother plays a trick on her family to get them to bond during the lockdowns.
In ‘Hanky Panky’, a youngster shuns the good old handkerchief for tissue paper after a trip to the US. “That story was written after a trip to the US. I was horrified to find people using up so much tissue paper to clean the kitchen, wipe tables, mop up spills and so on. I have seen it catching on in India also where we have always used cloth napkins, towels or handkerchiefs. My concern for the amount of waste being generated found its way into a story.”
She taps into her childhood memories to write stories that children can relate to. An avid reader and quiz master, Khyrunnisa says when she is writing a story, all that she has read seeps into the story. “But once I decide to use something in a story, I go back and read up on it to ensure there are no factual errors,” she says.
Almost at the same time as The Couch Potato, Khyrunnisa also wrote Kh Gha Ga.., a picture book for young children published by DC Books, a first for the author. Khyrunnisa’s strength as a writer has been her ability to keep alive the child in her and reach out to the child in her readers.
In her foreword to the book, she states: “My imagination….inspires stories fuelled by reality, driven by my concerns, and held together with humour.”
saraswathy.nagarajan@thehindu.co.in
onservation architects Swathy Subramanian, Savita Rajan and Ritu
Sara Thomas could not believe their ears when they were requested to restore a 300yearold dilapidated structure within two months for an annual ritual. They visited the heritage Kunnamangalam Bhagawati Temple in Naduvannur, 29 kilometres from Kozhikode in January 2023. They had to restore a mandapam in front of the sanctum sanctorum by March 10.
A year later, they are basking in the accolades coming their way for successfully restoring the heritage mandapam.
CAwards galore
In December 2023, the womenled project won the UNESCO AsiaPacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation for their work on the Karnikara mandapam at the temple. They also won the Gold Leaf Award, instituted by the Indian Institute of Architects. Three of them, alumnae of the School of Planning and Architecture, formed Ezha in 2017. It focuses on conservation architecture, documentation and restoration of heritage structures.
They recall they did not expect the mandpam to be in such a state of disrepair. “The 16 teak pillars were crumbling due to termites and the roof would have caved in during the next rain,” recalls Swathy.
More than a place of worship, this was the oldest structure in the neighbourhood.
“The local lore is that Bhadrakali, the main deity in the temple, is the guardian of the 18 hills and streams in the vicinity. So, the environment has not been vandalised in any way,” explains Sruthin Lal, executive director of the Archival and Research Project (ARPO), who contacted Ezha to restore the mandapam.
In 2022, Sruthin happened to meet Vivek Sahni, CEO and cofounder of Kama Ayurveda, an admirer of the work ARPO was doing.
“Enthralled by the story of the temple and the local belief, he agreed to donate ₹11 lakh for the restoration of the mandapam,”
says Sruthin. Immediately, he informed the management of
SWATHY SUBRAMANIAN
the temple of the offer.
Sruthin and Swathi’s team convinced the committee to preserve the mandapam without demolishing or modifying the original structure.
Instead of teak, which was beyond their budget, they chose venga, to replace the pillars and roof. In the place of paint or (clockwise from top) Swathy Subramanian, Savita Rajan and Ritu Sara Thomas at work on the premises of Kunnamangalam Bhagawati Temple in Kozhikode; the restored Karnikara mandapam at the temple; the three architects. varnish, they used an aromatic concoction made by Purushu Vaidhyan, a local Ayurveda physician.
“We were able to engage with local craftsmen on account of the use of lime made from clam shells; stone craftsmen worked on the laterite bricks and an expert in temple wood work did the timber work. These are dying arts and we are glad we were able to do our bit to keep them going,” says Swathy.
In March 2023, the mandapam was the venue for Kalamezhuthu and Kolamvettu, a ritual that stages the killing of a demon Darika by Bhadrakali.
“The restored sanctuary establishes an admirable grassroots model for transmitting the cultural legacy of Karnikara mandapam and other living religious sites across India and beyond,” reads the citation of the UNESCO award.