Vijetha Rangabhashyam
MARA AND THE CLAY COWS by Parismita Singh Tulika Publishers, Chennai, 2015, 76 pp., 250
November 2015, volume 39, No 11

It’s nice to know that India has finally woken up to the concept of original graphic novels—imagine what a story does to a kid’s mind when it is packaged along with whimsical sketches in vivid colours? In Mara And The Clay Cows author and illustrator Parismita Singh takes the reader to an unusual, magical territory of North Eastern India where an orphaned boy called Mara lives. On the one hand he is lonely and is disregarded by the village folk in the pretext of being a ‘bad omen’ and on the other, he has strange powers which his innocent soul is unaware of. Perched on a big rock, under a bright blue sky, he begins to mould himself a couple of cows from a piece of clay. After a short slumber, he wakes up to realize that the clay cows indeed have lives—the cows greet Mara cheerfully and introduce themselves as Rocky and Areiwon.

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