Story Practices

The story catcher children by Malavika Nataraj is a delightful book. Imaginative and contemplative at once, it is unputdownable. As someone interested in writing stories myself – I often wonder if what I write will come to life. In this book Suraya is given a very special gift by her Aunt Lila – an ancient Story Catcher book from Wales. The stories that Suraya choses to write in this book will come true. Warns Aunt Lila if you write only good stories – only good things will happen, but if you write bad stories evil things can also happen. Will Suraya write only good stories and make good things come to life or will she write a bad story – find out in this thought provoking book.

Hindi Storytelling

Could you talk about your career journey in writing?

My journey in writing started with writing a diary when my father used to bring back diaries from his office. In 1989 when I moved from Patna to Pune we had a Remington typewriter. I started typing articles which got published in the Indian Express. They would give topics like ‘Write about your mother’. They would pay for this 100, 150 Rs. Life went on, my children got married. My writing career began again slowly during the covid time. At this time, there started a platform called Momexpresso. Typically, here the stories would be 100 words, 300 words, 500 words. It was my main time to write. Unfortunately, the platform closed down in 2023. I was on a poor digital model then. I thought I had saved everything, but I lost all my writing. Everything was gone. Being a psychology student, and trying to find a solution I created a group for MomExpresso. I started writing again for TMC – The Momma Clan run by Harshita Udani. We would give writing goals – 600 words, one line, self prompts etc. I soon had content ready for a book. Being a teacher, I wrote small small stories. Harsita Udani, was also a publisher and she asked, ‘when do you want to publish?’ I decide to publish for my 75th Birthday in June. Harshita got all the illustrations made. The book got published and 80-85 copies sold. I also donated 15 copies. One of the schools, bought five copies for the library. I have published in 4 anthologies. I want to slow down. But maybe I will surprise people with new writing next year.

Could you talk about your knowledge system? Your value system?

As I grew up I saw my mother and grandmother – how they took care of my family. My values are very simple. When someone is distressed, I try to help them. I do my duty. God has given a lot to us – two times to eat, a home to stay. God has made us all different from each other so that we can all learn from each other. We often crib about everything. In winter about the cold, in summers about the heat. We keep cribbing. This is not good. My philosophy is to be good to everyone.

Life is too competitive these days. Children are expected to get 99 or 100 out of 100, sometimes even 110 out of hundred. Even 60% children are doing well. When I was teacher, I used say just as we have five fingers, all useful, all different, we have to learn to accept difference in children too.

Your career journey?

I started working in July 1985 — fourteen years in a public sector enterprise as a software developer. Life happened in between. Marriage, children. When I quit in 2000, I decided not to go back to software. I moved to the private sector — retail first, with Gokaldas Exports’ domestic brand Wearhouse, then to Vedha Automations, a company that sold software to retailers, which was eventually taken over by Tally. I became their Chief Marketing Officer. In a peer-reviewed survey, I was recognised as the best CMO by CMO Asia.

In 2015, I co-founded FableSquare Business Services, a digital marketing agency. It’s been eleven years now — challenging and equally rewarding. We’ve done marketing for companies big and small.

So the arc has been: programming to sales to marketing to communications to entrepreneurship. Writing has run alongside all of it.

How did writing begin?

My journey as an author began around 2008. I wrote on entrepreneurship for a business magazine called Business Gyan, for about two years. Around the same time, I attended a creative writing workshop and started writing poetry. Over the years, I built up a collection of 90 – 100 poems. I selected 50 for Folded Away Softly. My idea behind the book was to express myself — to put down observations and experiences that I’d been carrying.

My second book, Malli and the Mulky Stories, is about incidents from my childhood, set in the late 1960s and 1970s. Most of it is true to life, not too fictional. Children will benefit from reading about a time very different from their own. I also feel it will be great for parents and grandparents to read it with children, as the stories are of a time when children had no digital gadgets, less toys and more imagination and creativity.

Could you talk about your connection with languages?

I studied in a Kannada medium school. I speak Konkani at home, it is my mother tongue, a very sweet language. We use the Devanagari or Kannada script. Apart from that, I speak Tulu, Kannada, Hindi, and English. I understand Havyaka, a dialect of Kannada spoken largely by the Havyaka Brahmin community, but I’m not confident enough to speak it.

Why didn’t I write in Kannada? As Mangaloreans, we speak a bookish kind of Kannada. If you watch some of the older Kannada movies, there’s always one character who speaks in our Mangalore-style Kannada — and that character is the comedian. After 1986, I moved to Bangalore, and now after many years here, my Kannada is a bit mixed up. I can’t express myself as well in Kannada as I’d like. It will take some practice, and I’ve started that.

What do you focus on in your writing?

It is mostly my life experiences.

In Folded Away Softly, I’ve written in the first person, but the poem could be about something I observed, not necessarily something that happened to me. It’s written for Indian audiences, and from the responses I’ve received so far, people relate to what I’ve written.

Malli and the Mulky Stories is mostly about my childhood experiences. Every story has a section about what Malli learnt from a particular incident, the takeaways and an author’s note. Today, children spend a lot of time on screens. In our time, we had physical activities, we were creative in our games. The book is a documentation of that life — of Mulki, a small town near Mangalore, and the childhood that happened there.

When I started writing, it was to document my opinions, thoughts, and feelings. The storybook is a documentation of a life gone by.

Could you talk about your connection with books?

My mother and grandmother were avid readers. As a young girl, I used to visit the District Central Library at least once a week to borrow books. I read a lot of Kannada books. I read Triveni, M.K. Indira, Kuvempu, S.L. Bhyrappa, Beechi, and many others.

It was during my 10th grade that my father suggested I start reading English books. I moved to Jeffrey Archer, Sidney Sheldon, Wilbur Smith, Arthur Hailey, Agatha Christie, Ayn Rand, Harold Robbins, Barbara Cartland — a wide range.

Growing up in a small town had its charms and its limitations. We had limited access to movies, so books took us to a different realm. They gave us a glimpse of a world and a lifestyle beyond what we knew.

What are you working on now?

The second book in the Malli series. Twelve stories in chapter book format, each typically 1,000 to 1,200 words, each with an illustration. My target audience is children aged 7 to 12. I see children as intelligent beings, so I’ve used adult language but not complex words.

After the Malli series, my next book will be non-fiction, most likely on business-relevant subjects. I’m a business communication person at heart and by profession, that thread has never left.

About the illustrations in Folded Away Softly?

My daughter-in-law Dhanya Jinapal did 20 odd illustrations, and the rest were by Naganath Gowripura. The illustrations are based on my specifications, based on what wanted each one to convey. They’re not meant to illustrate the poem literally. They’re meant to sit alongside, the way the backstories or the context does