When The Wind God Fell Sick and Other Folk Tales

<b><i>‘Save the tree that’s a wood nymph you see!’</i></b><br> Readers of Indian folklore will immediately relate these words to India’s finest mythmaker and Jnanpith awardee Chandrashekhar Kambar’s works.<br> <i>When the Wind God Fell Sick and Other Folk Tales</i> a delightful collection of several folk stories and a play opens up fantastical vistas in children’s literature while addressing environmental concerns like saving trees conserving forests and keeping our world green and clean. With marvellous multi-layered plots this book transports young readers into a world full of gods demons princesses sorcerers and also common people.<br> These are tales of adventure romance and good-natured humour. ‘Daughter of the Kino Tree’ celebrates the victory of love against hostile supernatural forces. In another tale the eponymous Wind God ails with a strange sickness. In ‘Gullava and the Lord of Rain’ the evil king Bhupathi gets all trees chopped to prevent the Lord of Rain from visiting Earth. Naturally there is a calamity.<br> ‘The Tale of the Flower Queen’ is a play about a wood nymph who can transform into a tree. When the king of the land marries this Pushparani his jealous senior queen plots to kill her. The fight between humans who are bent on cutting a tree and the animal world which forms a protective ring around it is a superb climax. The collection includes other fascinating stories too.<br> Krishna Manavalli’s brilliant English translation brings the rich folk sensibility and a vibrant Kannada idiom to readers of the younger generation and to those young at heart.