“The colourful illustrations add their power to a story about how music and nature can bring children together and teach city children important lessons.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
A lyrical tale of two children by India’s best known children’s author. Ruskin Bond writes about the city girl Koki who meets a cowherd boy Somi playing on a flute near her grandmother’s country home.
Koki composes a song to Somi’s tune but her magic is with words rather than music. She cannot master the flute when Somi leaves it with her to go to the high pastures. Together the two make a whole – separated Koki is lost and her grandmother cannot understand what ails her.
The colourful illustrations add their power to a story about how music and nature can bring children together and teach city children important lessons. Bond always maintains that these elements can contribute to keeping people young and creating bonds across social divides. Nature, he implies, does not discriminate. For those who follow Hindu mythology, the cowherd with his flute does have undercurrents of the god Krishna who herded cows as a young man and played the flute. Not that the knowledge is vital to the appreciation of the story.
Reviewed by:
Anjana Basu
Added 9th June 2019
