Our Incredible Cow by Mahasweta Devi, Illustrations Ruchi Shah

Our Incredible cow – by Mahasweta Devi

Mumma : “How was the book?”

Piku : “I am not going in front of any cow wearing blue!”

With that amusing answer as a review of a book, I didn’t know what to expect from the book.

We picked up this book at the recent children’s literature festival held in kolkata in Jan 2017. The author’s name rang a bell in our minds. We had read the ‘the why why girl’ from the same author and had liked it. An attractive blue cow cover-page illustration made us seal the deal immediately.

Why we like the book: This book surpassed our expectations that we had built from this book. This illustrated classic children’s book is amusing and comical. The story kept us in good humor from the first to the last line. The incredible cow not only is non-vegetarian, she has appetite for most unusual things.  She is radical and anti-police. She has preference for colors and chews up everything blue. The writer goes on to add a detail of mentioning that her father’s vests are till date not whitened in indigo blue against the usual practice. The little reader in my house giggled long reading that the cow’s vet had to be taken to the doctor. Ha ha! An idiom in Bengali says “Golper Goru Gaache uthe” which translates to the in a cock and bull story a cow may climb a tree. Forget trees, here she climbed up to 1^st floor.

Moreover, the equally creative illustrations by Ruchi Shah are upright to the story. They are unique, noteworthy and add up to the amusement of the story. Colorful materials like printed fabrics, sarees and embroideries from Bengal, measuring tapes, yarns ;  leaves and hay, bottles and fish and ‘what not’ has been used to form a silhouette of this incredible cow. Incredibly amusing indeed!

About the author and original story: The original story was written in Bengali. In the year 1964.

Satyajit Ray, in the year 1961, was trying to revive a children’s magazine ‘Sandesh’ which was started by his grandfather Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury (1913). ‘Sandesh’ the word means  ‘message’ and is also a much relished sweet in Bengal. Satyajit Ray, man who needs no introduction, was a visionary. He spotted the talent to write for children in ‘Khuku’. Khuku , the storyteller would write crazy tales of her family members and their pets. . ‘Amader Nyadosh’ the Bengali original title (translates to ‘Our Nyadosh ( name of the cow in the story;also means lazy plump and adorable) was one of her several contributions to Sandesh. She went on to become our famous writer Mahasweta Devi. Her distinguished legendary works ‘Hazar Chowrasi ki Ma’, ‘Rudaali’ is well known and were adapted to cinema. She eventually also became a social activist for the empowerment of the tribals.

Author: Mahasweta Devi

Illustrator: Ruchi Shah

No. Of Pages: 21

Reading level: 5 - 100 years

Paperback: 24 pages

Publisher: Tulika Publishers; 1 edition (2013)

Language: English and is available in 8 more languages ( Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Malyalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujrati)

ISBN-10: 9350466759

ISBN-13: 978-9350466759

Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 21.6 x 0.5 cm

Goodreads rating : 4.5/5

Amazon rating: 4.5/5