"P.G. Wodehouse is my hero!"
A conversation with children's writer and illustrator Ashok Rajagopalan
Today, November 14, is celebrated as Children’s Day in India. It is the birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first Prime Minister. Nehru was a leader of great vision, an idealist, scholar, and thinker. He fought with Gandhi for India’s freedom from British rule, and then, as Prime Minister, helped shape India into a proud, democratic, and independent nation. He was much loved by his countrymen, and to the children he was their Chacha Nehru. In his memory and the great love he bore the children of India November 14 was deemed Children’s Day. On this day, India’s celebrates its children, the girls and boys who hold the future in their hands.
On this happy day, I have the pleasure of bringing you a conversation with the popular and well-known children’s illustrator and writer, Ashok Rajagopalan.
Ashok loves to tell stories and draw pictures that make people laugh, and in a career spanning more than three decades, he has worked on more than 500 children’s books. He has also worked as a graphic designer and freelance cartoonist, and has comics, animations, and graphic novels to his name. He is the creator of the much-loved elephant, Gajapati Kulapati. He has so far published four books about his adventures; these have been translated into several Indian languages. He lives in a quiet and green part of Chennai with his family and his books, and spends his free time reading, talking, laughing, and walking in the rain.
I have the privilege of calling Ashok a friend—we first met some twenty years ago, when he was already an established illustrator of children’s books, and I only a beginning writer. During the two decades of our friendship, Ashok and I have shared laughter and conversation on a variety of subjects, from the writings of P.G Wodehouse, his especial love, to the joys and sorrows of a writerly life. Last month, to my great delight, he agreed to a conversation for Fish. As is usual with old friends, and especially with Ashok, our conversation stretched from the planned hour to several more!
Here are selected excerpts, which I share with his permission, and many thanks for his time and the characteristic generosity with which he has shared his experiences as a children’s illustrator and writer.
RC: As I recall, you worked in marketing and advertising initially, and then moved into children’s illustration, and later, into writing for children as well. Can you tell us a little about this journey?
AR: Basically, I wanted to survive using my skills. I had a diploma in engineering, but I didn’t want to work in a factory. I wanted to earn money using my skills while doing something I loved. So I came to advertising. I did a little bit of illustration, and then logos and graphic design and so on. Even copywriting! The place I was working for, they had an intersting project going on—designing a magazine. They asked me to illustrate the jokes page. That’s when I started cartooning. I liked the cartooning bit very much, it was more fun than designing logos. Maybe one can get more creative and intellectual satisfaction doing typography or graphic design, but this cartooning was much more fun. And then I wanted to be a comic book artist—so I resigned from there, had my letterhead printed and declared to the world that I was a freelance artist.
So I became a freelancer.
The aim was to use my skills as much as possible to earn money. I had no specific style as an artist. I had everything in my portfolio, whatever medium was available—water colours, colour pencils, air guns. Even technical pens, like Hergé. You know, Hergé was an engineer, an engineering draughtsman and he drew the Tintin comics with technical pens—I used those too, to draw with. One of the things I did at this time was a single-page comic about an elephant who jumped into the water and threw his mahout out. I called the comic many names—Ganesh, then Gajapati, the Royal Elephant, Ganesh and Mahesh…
At that time, the children’s magazine Target was being published by Living Media from Delhi. Chandamama wanted a magazine for the same market in the south—so they brought out a similar magazine called Junior Quest, which Aditi De was editing. I had been in marketing after all, so I used my marketing skills, bought an issue of Junior Quest, found the details and made a cold call to their office. A sweet voice answered. I asked to speak to the editor—“about comics” I said. “What about comics?” asked the voice. “Do you like reading them? Or do you want to draw them?” “I want to draw them.” “Ok, then come over—this is Aditi, the editor speaking.” (Officially Aditi De was the associate editor, the editor was the publisher.) So I went over, she loved my portfolio and showed it to the inhouse art editor. They already had a comic—by Krishna Shastri Devalupalli, which he both wrote and drew. Junior Quest editorial policy didn’t allow for more than one comic (though Target had many). So Aditi gave me a page to illustrate, and I illustrated a story for her—and then she kept giving me work every month. So that’s how I got into children’s publishing.
After that I cold-called many other publishers. I would pick up the yellow pages, find their numbers and call publishers and then go meet everyone. That became my strategy. I ended up doing work for most of them. I was also freelancing for advertising. But adults don’t need so many pictures, children need more pictures, so that’s why I became a children’s illustrator—there was just more work in the sector.
RC: You also began writing for children. Was this a natural outcome of your work with illustration, or was this something you chose to do?
AR: I am very confident about my illustrations, not so confident about my writing. But I was passionate about it. PG Wodehouse was my hero. You know how children emulate their teachers and mothers? Since he was my hero and has given me so much, I wanted to be like him. But, though I was more passionate about writing than about drawing, I didn’t have the confidence. I didn’t think I was competent enough because my English wasn’t perfect.
And then, in the course of my travels through life, I joined Tulika as Art Editor (this was more than 20 years ago, before we met). I also illustrated and designed book covers for them. And there I saw all these manuscripts, dozens of manuscripts. In those days, submissions were sometimes in person. Writers would come into the office themselves, perhaps recommended by someone, and it was not possible to just say no. Everyone in the office would take a look at the manuscripts that came in. (Even now, this is how it is in Tulika—when I send in a manuscript, everyone takes a look.) I learnt there that editors do a lot of work. Much more work than we think. Some writers don’t need editing—they send in perfect manuscripts. But most writers are not perfect, and their manuscripts come with a lot of mistakes, and a lot of ‘lacks’—in the plot, in the idea—and the editors work hard to make that up. I also learnt that what editors primarily want is a great story—which, of course, doesn’t mean writers can or should send in a manuscript riddled with errors!
Learning that all writers are not perfect gave me a lot of confidence, enough, at least, to write things for the editors at Tulika to read. So I wrote a funny story about our team, which they enjoyed immensely. I also wrote a short story in the first person about an actress who wanted to act in a film in a dhavani, a half-sari. After reading the story, Sandhya Rao, the chief editor, said to me, “You are a better writer than any of us!” She stuck a yellow Post-It on my story actually! That gave me great confidence. I realise now that she was, as usual, just being extra-generous in her praise!
Tulika also had an exclusive children’s bookstore where they had reading sessions. So Radhika Menon, the head of Tulika, suggested we write a story to be read out at those sessions. So I wrote Gajapati Kulapati for that. This was twenty years ago. Ten years later it was published. (And that’s why Gajapati Kulapati has lots of sounds and noises in it—because it was meant to be performed, not read as a book.)
So that’s how I became a writer.
RC: And so we come to Gajapati Kulapati. Of all your books, this series is my favourite. I love the story line, the clear illustrations, the lyrical rhythm of your writing, and most of all the warm and friendly atmosphere of community that pervades the stories. The characters are very endearing and very real—not just the elephant, but also the villagers. Tell us more about these stories.
AR: Here, I would like to thank the poet and writer Suniti Namjoshi. Just before I joined Tulika as Art Editor, they held a poetry workshop conducted by Suniti Namjoshi. Tulika asked if I would like to attend—I don’t know why they chose me, I was one of their freelance illustrators then. I had never thought of myself as a poet, but I am always up for learning—the child part of me wants to learn a new thing every day—so I decided to try it. And during this workshop I made a great discovery. I realised that prose could be poetry, that it could have a rhythm, a lyrical quality, which I had before only thought of in association with poetry. This was revelatory for me, and changed my life. The rhythm of my writing in Gajapati Kulapati is a direct result of this workshop. That’s why I have lines like ‘Gajapati Kulapati is a big elephant/Gajapati Kulapati is a gentle elephant’ or ‘Small noses catch small colds/Big noses catch big colds’ . Even the name perhaps has the rhythm of an elephant’s walk—slow, graceful, calming.
So far I have four books in the series. People now think I can just churn out Gajapati stories just like that. Someone even suggested I write books like Gajapati Kulapati Goes to School, Gajapati Kulapati has a Haircut—totally commercialising and ruining the series. Yes, if you just want a story, I can write a story a day. But that’s not what I want to do. I wrote my first Gajapati Kulapati story quickly in a couple of hours. The second one took me a week, the third a month. And the fifth and latest one—that one, it took me months to get a proper story. Once the story is settled in my head, the writing of it is easy. I have no problems with the treatment, but the actual story is very important. I don’t want the children to find it boring. Besides, when writing a series, as a writer you set yourself certain conditions—or example, Jeeves must always rescue Wooster! In the Gajapati books there are no baddies, all the characters are good, they are loving and loveable and they must come together as a community. The conditions are a loss of freedom, you have to write within them, but they also give the series its shape.
RC: Would you say that Gajapati Kulapati is your most successful work?
AR: Gajapati Kulapati is a success, an unexpected success. I knew it would do well, but didn’t know it would be this much of a success. I was just doing my stuff. For me, Gajapati Kulapati being in print was itself a nice thing. Later on when children said they loved the book that gave me great happiness. And then it achieved a viral kind of success. I don’t want to be known only for that, but so far, yes, it is my big success and I am happy I have made so many children happy. I am a popular-art person, I am not literary. For me, it’s a case of the more the merrier as far as readership goes.
Though I guess one can’t choose what one becomes famous for—like Arthur Conan Doyle! He wrote all kinds of books, but it was Sherlock Holmes, basically pulp fiction at the time, that made him famous!
How readers judge us, and how we as writers judge ourselves is often different. We have creative conceit, and we also have creative humility because of which we judge ourselves very harshly. Sometimes we set the bar too low for ourselves, just so we can have the confidence that we will reach it. Sometimes we raise it, to just the right level—and then we aim to reach it and improve as writers. In illustration a beginning artist will be slow and very careful in his drawing, while an experienced artist will be quick and bold, because he has confidence in his ability. We need both, conceit and humility. And we need to balance them. Like blood sugar!
RC: Tell me about your graphic novel. Is that your latest work?
AR: Yes and no. I had written the graphic novel, Neelakshi, about 12 years ago. It’s being published by Yali Dream Creations this year. In addition to the graphic novel, a series of five comic books are also being brought out by the same publisher. They are set in ancient Chola and Pandya times and are 24 pages each. These are not aimed specifically at children or at adults but are for anyone who wants to read them.
As for my graphic novel, it is about a girl called Neelakshi. She is an IT professional (you can see I wrote it more than ten years ago!) and lives in California. She is very Americanised but comes to India as part of her job. She ends up in the world of the asuras and becomes a mediator between the devas and the asuras.
Our present beliefs and attitudes make the devas (the gods) good and their adversaries, the asuras, bad. But why should all asuras be bad? How can an entire peoples be bad? In Neelakshi, I am not judging the asuras. They are a more organic people, while the devas are the more technologically advanced, science-fiction type of creations.
I used a similar idea in a midgrade novel, Ha… Ha …Hasya!, published by Tulika. I consider that book to be my personal success as a writer. They say ‘write what you would like to read’. I wrote that book for the child in me.
RC: Is there anything else you’d like to share, tell our readers…
AR: I am not a great traveller. I am a family guy, I like being at home. Even going to the city from here, a few kilometres, is travel for me. But recently people have been inviting me to events in various cities, and though I usually avoid travel, this time I agreed. This is because, thanks to Covid, I fell completely out of my rhythm as a writer. I used to be fast, and very prolific. During Covid, I mostly lay on the couch watching television! This travelling has snapped me out of the Covid lethargy. I began finishing my work again, and was soon working on the fifth Gajapati Kulapati book—which should be out soon.
RC: Which is great news! I am looking forward to adding it to my Gajapati collection! Thank you for sharing your journey from advertising professional to children’s writer and illustrator. And thank you, always, for your insights.
It was a delight and an honour to chat with Ashok Rajagopalan.
The majority of his books have been published by Tulika Books. They are available HERE. The Gajapati Kulapati series, also published by Tulika, is available HERE.
He has also been published by Talking Cub, the children’s imprint of Speaking Tiger. His books with them are available HERE.
He has also written for Pratham Books’ Storyweaver initiative; his work can be found HERE.
Did you enjoy this conversation? Do write in with comments and questions. It is pleasure to here from you.
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Itwas great reading the interview with Ashok Rajagopalan. Idid not know about him,
Thanks