I’m no one to comment on the rarest and remotest of writers, but if I randomly caught hold of a bunch of 90s kids and asked them their favourite Sailen Ghosh novel, things are bound to get a little awkward for us all. Writing profusely in the 1960s, Sailen Ghosh was a Bengali dramatist, illustrator and writer, whose contribution in Bangla shishusahitya (children’s literature) is quite genre-bending, in a way — and yet he remains undeservingly underread. Bangla roopkotha has a bejewelled, oft-marvelled-at predecessor, Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar’s Thakurmar Jhuli. But perhaps Majumdar’s works have a blunt, nonchalant way of dealing with violence that remains problematic. Sailen Ghosh’s prose, however, runs smoothly, dealing with complex and sometimes cruel topics with sensitivity and melody. Easily readable because of his short sentences and simple rhyming schemes, Ghosh seems more authentic as a writer for children than a writer about children.
But I am not here to gush about him.
Recently, I chanced upon a survey analysing roughly seventy texts for American children, all featuring in top reading lists for children, which focused on how children’s literature dealt with death and grief[i]. The study took into account three main aspects of grief in children’s literature: gender, expression and the aftermath. Strangely enough, I did not think it necessary to look at children’s book through the lens of ‘who dies and who cries’, that is, whether the signs of grief expressed by the child protagonists or characters in books for children make them masculine – competent, in control of situation – or feminine – tears, anger, reclusion, requiring professional attention. I’m no one to judge really, I break into ugly cries over papercuts. But the abysmally low ‘feminine’ grief expressions in male children, in books at least, was a little frightening. Illuminating. What was more surprising was the aftermath — several books showed nearly no change in the lives of the protagonists following death(s), and in many others, grief was a short period which did not appear to crush people with the weight of it all.
It is in this context that I look at Shailen Ghosh’s novella, Tui Tui. Tui Tui is a story of grief, anger, brutality, acceptance and love. The very first premise is that of death, and unlike in many other works for children, we deal with the sufferings of an adult man, the king. Having lost his wife, son and daughter to mysterious ailments, the king suffers from paranoia and trauma. The mere sight of flowers, birds and anything remotely beautiful reminds him of his family, for they too were once full of life and grace. And so, the king destroys everything that is beautiful. He reacts to death by cutting down flowering trees and killing all the birds in his kingdom, inhabiting a lifeless, barren land filled with only man-made luxury.
The maddening grief that the king displays and suffers from takes a toll on his emotional and mental wellbeing. There is no mention of how he runs the country, and judging by his earnest efforts to kill every bird that he hears chirp and every flower that blooms on a branch, it would not be exaggeration to conclude that grief had overtaken him, consumed him and had left a shell of a man. For the unfortunate lot of us who have known how death does not only take the ones it sets eyes upon, but with them it takes all of the joy, the warmth from the people around, will perhaps remember what it is like to have loved ones die. It is a cold, lonely chamber, a huge mansion of emptiness where every beautiful thing seems like a mockery. And so, the king wakes up, crazed by how senselessly beautiful nature is — despite the death of his family, everything around him seems fine, everybody happy. This, in itself, expresses as a form of paranoia, a hyperbolic expression of passionate grief. Tui Tui, unlike many other children’s books, is not mute in its motifs of grief, it is dramatic and big, sweeping all happiness away and replacing it with a sense of gloom, agony and fear. The ministers fear the angry king, the physicians fear the insane king, the king fears the flightiness of ephemeral beauty.
Mark, however, the distinct beauty of the lyrics. Not gothic or comical in their approach, Ghosh’s lyrics are sympathetic.
“রাজার চোখ লাল টকটক।
সিপাইগুলো দেখছে যত,
কাঁপছে তত।
ঠকঠক।“
“The king’s eyes flashed bright!
His men gazed,
Trembling and dazed
In fright!”
(translation mine)
The rhythms are simple and they only hope for mercy. They hope the king forgives the birds for being so melodious, the flowers for being so bright. They hope we forgive the king for being so cruel.
After one such psychotic episode where the king is clearly tethered to reality by a thread, he runs away from the palace.
Perry Nodelman’s examination of six popular children’s books had uncovered a recurrent trope of home/away/home, that is, stories that follow children who leave home, to pursue adventure and finally return back to home, happily[ii]. This plotline serves the purpose of examining the formative adult in a child, exposing the person he/she is becoming. It is only after leaving can the child truly appreciate what they have left behind. Ghosh’s unnamed king is not a child, nor does he have to go through a journey of self-discovery. What essentially happens is, he runs away from his locale of grief, going through a forest — the space of confusion and chaos — to land on a state away from grief, where the deaths have not affected the people around him, where he is insulated from the memories of death and the sympathies of his fellow mourners. The king does not need to appreciate his home, he needs to identify it as a space apart from the grief. He does not have to ‘grow up’, he needs to let go and learn to love again.
The reversal of the roles of the children and the adult is important for Tui Tui. In the land far, far away from his kingdom, the king, battered and tattered after his flight, arrives nearly passing out from exhaustion. His two guardians here are the brother-sister duo, Shanto and Chumki. Seven- and five-year-olds themselves, respectively, the two children take on the roles of the king’s caretakers. While Chumki brings him food and sustenance, Shanto carries him to a shelter. The king realises that just like adults, Shanto and Chumki too have no guardians, they too are on their own. Shanto has taken the role of the breadwinner, by rearing goats, and Chumki has taken domestic responsibilities on herself. How is this even possible, you ask? I am tempted to say anything is possible, but it will not be a flamboyant fib. Looking at thousands of homeless, refugee children the world churns out every year, we must believe that anything is possible.
The second half of the novella shifts the readers’ attention to the new protagonist, Shanto. As a child-adult, a child who displays adult-behaviour and role, he takes it upon himself to find his sister’s lost, yellow bird and stand-up against the king, who, unbeknownst to them, has now become a friend to them. Shanto too has to go through a journey, the exact reverse one that the king had travelled. He leaves his home, the peaceful abode of joy and singing birds, through a dark forest and arrives at the king’s forsaken kingdom. Here people are selfish, transactional and cruel. Unlike the king, Shanto needs no healing, he needs to experience the other face of humanity — the ‘adult’ world. One of the most interesting characters is the one of the unnamed, old toy-maker, a repetitive motif of Ghosh himself. He is a man who understands kindness and childhood, who is hopeful about better times — he prepares toys for children — and yet is brusque and withdrawn from the worldly wisdom of how much children suffer.
The two children exhibit the type of behaviour that adults show towards children, a kind, condescending attitude. Perhaps this is just what the king needs, for he too engages in a child-like life with them — playing, singing and dancing. As Shanto assures the king that nobody will hurt them if they do not hurt others, and as the king sees the two children pinning for their friends, the blue bird and the yellow bird, the enormity of his own cruelty — the king had killed the mate of the yellow bird, the blue one, leaving the yellow bird in grief — dwells upon him. He is no longer an angry monarch trapped in the castle of blinding grief. He is free. And his freedom comes with an awareness of others’ grief, a consciousness about everyone who is suffering.
The freedom is in realising that nobody is a special snowflake. Grief is for everyone, death knocks at every door. Despite that, we must continue to love and cry. Sailen Ghosh’s Tui Tui is a very personal read, for me. Beyond the beautiful poetry and the realist-fantastic storyline, the plot is merely a story of a man, a grownup, an adult, who needed the children to hold his hands. It is a story for the children to realise how much they can do. It tells them, and us, that it is okay to feel grief ravaging and altering the person you are. It is okay to seek help.
[i] Moore, Timothy, and Reet Mae. “Who Dies and Who Cries: Death and Bereavement in Children’s Literature”, Journal of Communication. Autumn, 1987. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228012898_Who_Dies_and_Who_Cries_Death_and_Bereavement_in_Children%27s_Literature. Accessed on 20th March, 2024.[ii] Nodelman, Perry. The Hidden Adult: Defining Children’s Literature, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
Kajori Patra has recently completed her M.A. degree in English from Jadavpur University. She likes to read Bangla KidLit and is often accused of being ‘childish’ in her choice of literature. She also has an academia account to fool KidLit scholars into taking her seriously: (2) Kajori Patra | Jadavpur University – Academia.edu. Hopefully, the government(?) will fund her odd obsession with Bangla KidLit someday. She can be found at @bookisque on Instagram and @not_cleopatra on Twitter.
