Anita Nair’s new children’s book is about a dreamer

City-based author Anita Nair is back with a children’s book. Bipathu and a Very Big Dream follows a nine-year-old girl who wants to play football with actor Hrithik Roshan and her brother who has cerebral palsy.

Bipathu, the protagonist, hails from a poor Muslim family. She lives with her mother, a single parent, and her older brother Saad. She has a lot of responsibilities. “Bipathu attends the local government school and her life is limited. What makes her different from other children is that she dreams about the same thing almost every night — playing football with Hrithik Roshan and her brother,” Anita shares. Bipathu “is fed by the energy of the dream, and it is what keeps her going”, she adds.

The book is set in a post-pandemic world — depicting a world where schools have reopened, and children continue to wear masks, she adds.

Anita is excited about her latest offering but admits that writing for children is “definitely harder than writing for adults”. She says, “I do not have to think about what kind of influence my writing has on a person when it comes to adults. But when writing for children, I have to be conscious of that. I cannot advocate certain things.” She is known for books like Ladies Coupé, Malabar Mind, and The Puffin Book of Magical Indian Myths.

What the book does touch on are issues around bullying, how families of children with special needs cope, and gender discrimination (for instance, Bipathu is told she cannot play football because she is a girl). “I have touched on different topics but everything is from a child’s point of view,” Anita says of the 216-pager which also has illustrations in it.

The story is drawn from Mundakotukurussi in Palakkad, Anita’s ancestral village. “The book is set in the fictional village of Kaikurishi, which was mentioned in my first book The Better Man, and then in ‘Mistress’, and ‘The Little Duck Girl’.” Maash, an elderly character from ‘The Little Duck Girl’, also finds his way into this story.

Saad’s character is inspired by a friend’s child whom Anita met a few years ago. “He is adept at using computers, and is so full of life. Unlike other children with similar conditions, he is a little more aware of his own condition yet he is helpless,” she shares.

Anita says writing for children is always an interesting experience as children are the best literary critics. “If they don’t like a book, they just leave it and don’t read it. There’s no pressure on them to read a book and have a conversation about it,” says Anita, who has authored children’s books like ‘Muezza and Baby Jaan’, ‘Living Next Door to Alise’, and ‘Who Let Nonu Out?: Who? Who? Who?’ in the past.

Anita’s next release is a complete contrast to ‘Bipathu...’. “I have a new book coming out in December. It is a crime novel,” she says.

Available for Rs 299 online.