If you’re familiar with the Farmer Falgu series (published by Karadi Tales) that I write and Kanika Nair illustrates, you will notice that Farmer Falgu is always going somewhere.

It wasn’t planned – it just happened that way. And now, given my mild obsession with patterns, I always send him off somewhere.

I have a childhood reputation of “going somewhere” all the time. And even now as a grown-up people think I’m always on wheels. But in reality, I’m a homebody. I love staying at home and doing stuff, cooking snacks, reading a book. If I can help it, I won’t leave my cave for days. My alter-ego Farmer Falgu adds to the myth of my “wandering spirits”.

The trouble is Farmer Falgu’s trips are filled with surprises, some nice and some not so nice. But Farmer Falgu never loses his cool – he resolves them the best he can.

Keeping up with tradition, this time for the third book in the series, Farmer Falgu would be going somewhere too. This time too, not so far. But intensely exciting. He’s taking his daughter Eila to the kite festival.

In Rajasthan and in many parts of northern India, kite festivals are part of the Sankaranthi celebrations. The colourful kites adorn the winter sky adding more colour to the celebrations.

When Kanika made Farmer Falgu a Rajasthani farmer, I wanted to do a book that was unique to the land he was from. The book is full of Farmer Falgu’s charm – he takes his friends and Eila is having loads of fun despite the troubles.

Eila seems to be following in her father’s footsteps in helping and sharing and I like her for that. When Eila is devastated, Farmer Falgu of course has to save the day. He is her dad and we want dads to chase the monsters and bring order to the world. And that’s what Farmer Falgu does. And all’s well in Eila’s world.

 

 

 

Want to find out more? Want to listen to the story? Come to Jaipur Literature Festival and buy the book! It’s a free event. So drop in. And on your way back you can always fly a kite.