The Neverending Story

The Neverending Story
originally in Kannada by Ashwini Bhatt
Illustrations by Chinmayie

Ages : 3-6

Who doesn't want a never ending story? Just the thought of it would delight any child.. A girl asks her grandma for a never ending story and grandma gives her not one but two of them that are never ending!

The first is a folk-tale like ditty about an old man who comes from Madikeri to Bengaluru. Then comes the old man's wife from Madikeri to Bengaluru... Then their daughter, and the daughter's doll, and the doll's dog, and the dog's tail .. and you can imagine in this vein the story would never end.

But the girl isn't satisfied, perhaps she can see through her Grandma's ploy? She gets agitated and asks her grandma "When will this story end?"And that's when Grandma comes up with the second story that is nicely interwoven into the first. She says that the story will end when the needle comes out of the well.

Needle come out of the well? How did it land up there? Well it so happens that there was an old woman who had a torn saree and asked her son for a needle to sew it. And then the needle fell into the well.

And then what happened? - you may ask.

Well - if you ask Grandma that, she would say - "If you ask me what happened, will the needle come out of the well?"

To which you might respond with a "No". And then grandma would say "If you say No, will the needle come out of the well?".

Did you just say Aaargh? To which grandma would respond, 'If you say Aaargh, will the needle come out of the well?"

You see where this is going?

When my daughter read this story, she was laughing hard at this point, to which I obviously said "If you laugh, will the needle come out of the well?". She tried various things, like shaking her head, to just looking at me with a meaningful expression, to writing to me, but all I said was - "If you do that, will the needle come out of the well?"

For days after reading this story, we ONLY spoke about the needle coming out of the well, because in case you remember, only if the needle comes out of the well, can this story end. Else it is a never ending story!

A lovely book (by Ashwini Bhatt), very to-the-point illustrations by Chinmayie, and written in several languages Hindi/Kannada/Telugu/Tamil/Bangla.

My only gripe? This book is best enjoyed in Kannada, the meter of the ditty (Madikeri to Bengaluru) is a bit unwieldy in English.