“Rashomani Kewalya describes a scenario that may be all too real given the depredations of global warming.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
Rashomani Kewalya describes a scenario that may be all too real given the depredations of global warming. She tells the story of a world where rain hasn’t fallen in 10 years and people drink something called H2O which is artificial water and smear themselves with Sun Savers because exposure to the sun is fatal.
Part of this world is 10 year old Anoushqua who studies at the Sloping Valley High School and listens to stories of a time when little boys floated paper boats in rainwater, a time when her grandfather was a little boy.
Anoushqua discovers that her grandfather’s health is failing and she is filled with a desire to make it rain for her grandfather. She runs from pillar to post to find ways to solve the problem , including going to a scientist called Gargi who is applying for permission to apply a rainfall project to the atmosphere and discovering a magician who claims that he can make it rain.
Anoushqua is determined to change the world as she knows it and Rashomani Kewalya paints a realistic school background where the number of likes a person gets on social media can influence a Prime Minister to pass a bill. There also media stars on television who behave like the ones we know, all put in to make 2028 believable. Children are the same obsessed with marks and malls and ultimately kind hearts win out. Even shady magicians turn out to be honest and though everything cannot be the way it is in fairy tales, love and nature can perhaps still win through.
Reviewed by:
Anjana Basu
Added 2nd October 2018
