The Famous Five for a new generation

A recent article mentioned a new Famous Five animated series in which the original five are older and George is married to an Indian character named Ravi.

Too many fond memories of curling up with Enid Blyton books during summer holidays, so had to go find out.



Here's the low down:

Producers say the animated tales remain faithful to the themes of storytelling, mystery and adventure central to the original books but add a contemporary twist.

They feature 12-year-old Anglo-Indian Jo, short for Jyoti - a Hindi word meaning light - who, like her mother George, is a tomboy and the group's team leader.

Other characters include Allie, a 12-year-old Californian "shopaholic" who enjoys going out and getting "glammed up" but is packed off to the British countryside to live with her cousins.

Her mother was Anne in the Famous Five, a reluctant adventurer who has now become a successful art dealer. The team is completed by adventure junkie Max, who is 13-year-old Julian's son; Dylan, the 11-year-old son of Dick, and dog Timmy.

The entire article is here, more coverage here, and here's a video clip from the animated series. There's also a plan afoot for bringing back the original characters in a new series of novels.

About a year ago, I went looking here for these and other Enid Blyton novels for C, but I had no luck. Our local library had one title and I found some obscure Enid Blyton book on Amazon for the ridiculously expensive price of $90. Now his grandparents and aunt just send them over from India.

Illustration from telegraph.co.uk.

The Alibi - Parts IV and V are up

I've posted the final parts of The Alibi (Parts IV and V). They appear below Part III.

If you want to know what all this is about, please read this for background on this series. Thanks!

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Parts II and III of the story are up

I've posted parts II and III of the short story. Parts IV and V in the next couple of days. Ciao!

Please see below Part I.

P.S.: Missing blogging terribly!

Short Story - The Alibi (Part 1)

Please read this for background on this series. Thanks.

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The Alibi

The ancient wooden gate creaked. Chandrashekar Murthy looked up from the newspaper he was pretending to read. He waited anxiously for Ravi and Suman to make their way up the driveway and through the front door to the huge verandah that he spent his evenings in. The doctor’s clinic was only a short walk away from the house, so Ravi had not bothered to take out the car.

Chandrashekar folded up the newspaper with studied concentration, all the while trying to read the expression on his daughter-in-law’s face. She removed her slippers at the door and placed them on the rack to the side before climbing the stars two at a time to her bedroom on the floor above. Chandrashekar felt his heart sinking, and the look on Ravi’s face confirmed his worst fears.

“What did the doctor say?”

Ravi said nothing. He could tell his father knew. He sank into the deep sofa that lined one side of the wall across from the easy-chair that his father reclined on.

“Why don’t you get a check up for yourself and Suman and see if everything is all right? May be you should get a second opinion, see another doctor. Someone more experienced in these matters. You’ve been seeing the same one...”

Ravi winced. “Appa, you know you’re just saying those things. You don’t mean them. The doctor says Suman and I are fine. This whole thing is beginning to get on my nerves! Suman is upset, you’re upset and I’m just fed up. I feel like a fool every time I go to the doctor.” Ravi buried his head in his hands, unable to meet his father’s eyes.

“Ravi, go to Suman. She must be feeling terrible. We’ll talk about this later.”

* * * * *

Suman bounded up the stairs two at a time, dashed into her bedroom and closed the door behind her, thankful that Ravi had remained downstairs. She leaned against the door and forced herself to take deep breaths. Her heart had been racing and she had felt out of breath all the way from the doctor’s clinic. When she felt a little steadier, she pushed herself away from the door and slowly made her way to the sink in the adjoining bathroom. Her flushed face welcomed the splash of cool water. She looked up and saw her face in the mirror hanging over the sink – the face of a distraught woman. Tears came hot and wet into her eyes. The mirror dissolved in front of her as she was transported to another time, another place – ten years ago, the operating room of the Darjeeling General Hospital.

* * * * *

Ravi climbed up the stairs slowly, one at a time. He wanted to make his getaway from his father, but was in no hurry to get to the bedroom. He reached the door and found it closed. He pushed at it gently and heard the splashing of the water in the bathroom. Suman must be washing up. It was almost time for dinner. He backed up and closed the door gently, thankful that he did not have to see her right then. He made his way to the spare bedroom that they used as a study. He sank into the large leather chair, stretched his legs out in front of him, let his head flop on the headrest and closed his eyes. He willed them to come, the images that haunted him.

They were there, ready, simmering just beneath the surface, and at times like this, when he did not try to push them down deep to a place where he would not have to acknowledge them, they swam up and roamed freely right before his eyes. It was a relief not to fight them.

The images were never the same. Sometimes, it was Amma on her bed, lying still, except for those rasping breaths that seemed to suck what little life there was out of her rather than sustain it. Along with the images came the smells. The smell of the chemicals that were coursing through her body, trying in vain to vanquish the marauding cancer cells. The smell of her room, a strange but comforting mixture of furniture, her clothes, her favorite talcum powder and her hair oil. Sometimes, when the images were of Amma in the kitchen, all those years ago, as he came running home from school, it was the smell of some delicious snack she had cooked up to cajole him into eating before he ran off to play.

But always, whenever Amma came to him, she left him with the image of her laid out in the verandah, waiting for the van to arrive from the crematorium, covered with a white sheet, the smells of fresh flowers and incense sticks trying to overcome the smell of death.

At other times, it was Appa, always aloof and stern, fiercely immersed in work, out of reach and unavailable, his demeanor as starchy as his crisply ironed shirt and dhoti. As Ravi grew older, Appa seemed to add layer after layer to the wall that he was putting up between them. What had gone wrong and when, wondered Ravi. He could not put his finger on anything he had done or said that had made Appa particularly angry with him. Ravi had begun to think he was cursed. The distance seemed to have crept between them and had made itself at home, refusing to budge. The first time Ravi felt it, it had caught him by surprise.

* * * * *

Part II will be up in the next couple of days.

Short Story - The Alibi (Part II)

Please read this for background on this series. Thanks.

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The Alibi...(contd.)

Every visit that Suman made to the doctor brought back memories of those few months spent at the Darjeeling General Hospital all those years ago. Memories of the doctor assuring her and her parents that following the procedure, she would be perfectly normal. Memories of the procedure going horribly wrong and a contrite doctor telling her that she might never be able to conceive again.

The pure terror she had felt when she had first found out she was pregnant had never abated. Suman could still feel the room spinning around her, her legs not able to support her any longer. She clutched the sink for support and raised one hand to her cheek. Ma had not said a word when Suman had told her. She had stared at Suman silently. Suman felt the stinging slap on her cheek before she realized Ma had even raised her hand.

Suman was sixteen at that time, brought up in a well-to-do family, respected in their community. Ma and Papa had panicked. They had pulled her out of high school and taken her away from Raghu, to far away Darjeeling. Nosy friends and relatives were told that Papa had a medical condition that required a long stay in the cool climate of Darjeeling. Suman’s lips quivered at the memory of the anguish. She and Raghu had been so happy, madly in love. They had wanted to get married.

Her feelings had not stood a chance. Papa had been ruthless and Mama had stuck by him. They had had dreams for her, they said. She would finish high school, go on to college, and become a doctor. They were ashamed and mortified that she would bring this upon their family, they said. Where had they gone wrong, Ma lamented. Which respectable family will want her as a daughter-in-law, she fretted. He will break that boy Raghu’s knees if he ever saw him on the street, Papa threatened.

By all accounts, the procedure was meant to be quick and uncomplicated. The doctor had even declared the procedure a success right after she was wheeled from the operating room into her recovery area. The next day, they had performed a routine ultrasound to confirm that there was no lingering pregnancy tissue in her uterus. The doctor had become agitated. He pointed to two tiny gray grainy circles – something about holes in the uterus. Ma seemed to understand immediately.

Suman’s vessel of life was a sieve.

Ma gasped, the color draining from her face. Suman’s uterus had been punctured as they cleaned it, the doctor continued. Papa seemed to wither and shrink right before her eyes, suddenly looking powerless and deflated. He never spoke to Suman again.

When the family returned home a few months later, Ma convinced Papa to let her go back to school, if only to preempt probing relatives. Papa did not protest; he did not seem to care.

Suman’s head was throbbing now. Suman shook her head to banish the images in her head and stared at her dripping face in the mirror. She reached for the towel and wiped her face. Where were those painkillers?

* * * * *

Ravi could remember it now, the time when Appa had seemed to have lost all his ability to reason; it was right after his 10^th birthday. Amma had come back yet again from the hospital, but this time, after an unusually long stay. She was resting in her room. Ravi was not sure why she had gone to the hospital this time, but he wanted to find out. He crept into her room when he came back from school and snuggled up to her. She winced when his knee rested against her stomach and gently pushed his knee down and pulled him closer.

“Amma, what happened at the hospital?”

“My stomach hurts” she said, caressing her belly.

“Why?”

She looked at him. She was searching his face for something. After what appeared to be a long time to Ravi,

“Ravi, Appa and I haven’t told you something. I wanted to wait until you were a little older, but…”

“But, what?”

“In a few months, you were going to have a little brother or sister. But…”

“Amma, but what?”

Amma’s chin wobbled. “The baby died.”

Ravi couldn’t remember the details of what happened next. The next few images were always of Amma starting to sob uncontrollably, Appa striding into the room and yanking him out of Amma’s arms. That was the first and only time Ravi could remember his father spanking him. He was in a rage and was screaming something about leaving his mother alone and not bothering her.

After that day, Appa never seemed to be the same again. He never looked Ravi in the eye when he spoke to him. He never asked how he was doing in school. Amma tried to make up for it. She tried to console him and told him over and over again that it was nothing he did that made Appa behave this way. Appa took the miscarriage really hard, she said. The miscarriage came at the end of eight long years of wanting and waiting to have another child. Amma had always been too sick with something or the other. To make matters worse, the doctor had forbidden them from trying again for another child. It was too risky for Amma’s health.

There was something else about the way Appa behaved with him that bothered Ravi. He shifted his head slightly to the right, as he lay stretched out on the leather couch in the study, as if he could will the order in which the images streamed into his mind. For all his indifference, Appa was desperate to keep Ravi at his side and Ravi always felt he was being watched.

Like the time Ravi had insisted on going away to college in a different town and Appa had insisted he stay, his pleas bordering on desperation. Ravi was taken aback. Why, he wondered. He had not expected this resistance. But Ravi had gone anyway, not wanting to come back home for a long time. Or like the time Ravi had brought a friend – a girl – home. Appa had wanted to find out everything. Did Ravi want to marry her? How many children do her parents have? Are they all married? Do they have any children? Ravi brushed the questions aside. She was just a friend; he did not want to marry her.

Appa’s demeanor seemed to change when Ravi and Suman were married. He seemed a little more relaxed. He even smiled when Suman came into the room. The marriage was arranged through one of Appa’s colleagues. The colleague had known Suman’s family for a long time.

Ravi took a deep breath and let it out slowly. If only Appa’s happiness had come a little earlier. Maybe he would not have felt so wretched all his life. Maybe he would not have gone down this cursed path.

Short Story - The Alibi (Part III)

The Alibi (contd...)

Chandrashekar watched his son climb the stairs and sighed. He grimaced at how hard he had tried to push Ravi away. Not a day went by now when Chandrashekar did not rue those lost years when he so foolishly thought that he could push Ravi away and therefore not feel this hurt Ravi was feeling now. He had been selfish, but Chandrashekar realized over the last few years that his aloofness had been futile. He could still remember the pure terror he felt when Ravi had asked to go away to college. He had begged Ravi to stay. He could not afford to lose him too…

Chandrashekar had not intended it at all, but Ravi had ended up suffering more than the share of his pain – the loss of his mother, the loss of his father’s affection, the loss of an unborn sibling, and now this greatest loss of all, the inability to have children. Ravi’s pain brought back memories. Memories he never succeeded in repressing. Memories of his own father explaining to him why he was adopted, and why Ravi would never know the pleasure of fathering his own flesh and blood. Chandrashekar had not believed it when he first heard it and he could not now. This was the 21^st century for heaven’s sake!

He got up from his easy chair and walked over to the mesh that enclosed the verandah. He laced his fingers in the mesh and let his body rest on the strength of his fingers. He looked like a flea plastered on the wall. He stared out into the garden, his eyes taking in everything, but his mind seeing nothing. What should he do? Should he tell Ravi what his own father had told him? What purpose would that serve, wondered Chandrashekar.

* * * * *

She walked back into the bedroom and sat at the edge of the bed wondering how she had gotten herself in this predicament. Ma and Papa had relived the pain when it was time for Suman to get married. The marriage proposals came, unsolicited, from well-meaning friends and family. No one knew. Suman remembered how scared she had been. What if someone found out? Ma and Papa seemed to be at a loss. Should they entertain these proposals? Should they put them off? But for how long? Tongues would start wagging if Suman was not married soon.

When Papa’s close friend came with a proposal, Suman had wanted to go forward with the process if only to change her surroundings. She had wanted to put an end to this. She was tired of walking on egg shells. Living in the same house with Ma and Papa never allowed her to forget. For Ma and Papa, she had turned into a constant reminder of an ugly episode in their lives.

Suman let her body fall on the bed and closed her eyes. She had been naïve. Forgetting had not been that easy. The egg shells were all around her, challenging her to navigate them. Now, she had two other lives to worry about. Two lives she was about to crush with her story.

She knew it was time. Ever since she and Ravi had tried to start a family, she had approached every visit to the doctor with a combination of trepidation and hope -- afraid that her secret would be revealed, and hopeful that the doctor might give them the good news that she had conceived. It had to be done. Ravi had to be told the truth.

* * * * *

The visits to the doctor always drained him. Ravi had been thankful to have found a doctor that didn’t seem to find anything wrong with him. He resisted Appa’s attempts to have them switch doctors. But Ravi could no longer bear the crushing disappointment he was sure Suman and Appa must be feeling. He could see it on their faces. He felt responsible. He could not find any other explanation. The doctor said Suman was fine. She was young and healthy, and there was no reason she could not conceive. Ravi felt certain he was the cause. Another doctor at another place and another time had been certain too.

Fifteen years of keeping that secret was fraying his nerves now. Even at the height of the crisis, he had not told his parents, relying instead on his friends to pull him out of the morass he had found himself in. Amma’s illness had made things worse…

Ravi pulled himself off the back of the chair and bent forward, hiding his face between his knees and hugging his legs. His best friend Shekar – had he been a friend or a curse? In high school, where Ravi first met him, he had seemed like a god send. They had moved on to the same college. Shekar was self-assured. He never seemed to feel any of the inadequacies that Ravi always seemed to be feeling. Ravi leeched on to him. Shekar didn’t seem to mind Ravi tagging along. They did everything together – or, Ravi thought disdainfully – Shekar did everything and Ravi just followed. They studied together, they went to the movies together, they played together, they drank together, did drugs together.

Ravi quickly learned the comforts of drinking and doing drugs. It didn’t seem to matter anymore that Appa was distant, nor that Amma was sick all the time. The images were all fading into one another in Ravi’s mind. Nothing else mattered but the next snort or the welcome pain of the syringe.

The trip to Ooty during his final year of college brought the starkest images to Ravi’s mind. Maybe the drugs were spurious or maybe it was the fact that they had mixed alcohol with drugs, but Ravi and Shekar found themselves at the hospital the day after they arrived in Ooty. A hotel attendant found them passed out in a corner of the garden.

The doctor at the local hospital there had not minced his words. “You’ve been at this a long time, haven’t you? Do you know what drugs do to you?” Ravi turned his gaze away from the doctor. The doctor had launched into a lecture anyway. He talked about how drugs ravaged the body and the mind. He talked about impotence and sterility. Ravi just wished he would go away. Did any of this really matter?

Now, he was tired. He just wanted it to stop – the visits to the doctor, the dread that invaded his days and nights before the visits and the guilt that followed. He did not know what coming clean would do to him, or his marriage, or his relationship with Appa. But, surely, anything would be better than living like this! It had to be done. He would tell them today. After dinner.

Short Story - The Alibi (Part IV)

Please read this for background on this series. Thanks.

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The Alibi (contd)...

Suman gulped down the painkillers and walked into the kitchen to see what Kamala Bai had made for dinner. Kamala Bai had been a god send. She had been in charge of the kitchen ever since Ravi’s mother had passed away ten years ago of cancer. She arrived early each morning and cooked that day’s breakfast and lunch, and came again around four in the evening to cook dinner. She originally delivered milk to the Murthys everyday, when Ravi’s mother was still alive. She had started bringing food to Ravi and his father in those first few weeks after her death until all the rituals of the funeral were complete. As Ravi and his father grew comfortable with her, she saw her role being expanded into that of a full-time cook and had stayed on that way even when Ravi got married. Suman loved having not to worry about cooking on top of her job at one of the clothing manufacturers in town.

Suman found chapathis, potato curry, rice, carrot and onion sambhar, and cucumber raitha. On most days, her mouth would have watered at this spread and she would have excitedly called to Ravi and her father-in-law to come to dinner. Today she silently picked up the dishes and took them to the dining table in the adjacent room. She brought the steel thalis and set them out, Chandrashekar’s at the head of the table, and one each for Ravi and Suman on either side. She knew she was forgetting something, but she sat down wearily at her chair.

Ravi came down the stairs and heard a noise in the dining room. He found Suman at her chair, head in her hands.

“Suman…”

“Oh, hi! Sorry, don’t know what I’m doing. Can you call your father, please? Its getting late for dinner.”

“I will… Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Suman turned to look Ravi in the face.

“Ravi, we need to talk. After dinner.”

“What is it? Is everything all right?”

“No, you know its not. But I don’t want to get into this now. Could we please wait until after dinner?”

“OK… Suman…?”

“Please, not now.”

“No, not that. I need to talk to you too.”

Suman looked at Ravi, searching, trying to recognize the expression on his face. She couldn’t.

“Sure, OK.”

Ravi put his head through the doorway connecting the dining room with the verandah and found his father leaning against the mesh, staring out into the garden.

“Appa! Dinner is ready.”

Chandrashekar turned. “I’ll be there in a minute. Did Suman come down?”

“Yes, she did.”

“OK, I’ll be there.”

Chandrashekar pulled himself away from the mesh. He washed his hands and face in the little sink in the hallway and walked into the dining room. Ravi was pouring water into the steel tumblers. Suman brought in the butter milk from the kitchen and sat down at the table.

Chandrashekar looked at his son and daughter-in-law. They seemed to be distraught. Suman looked like she had cried. Her hands shook as she silently served her father-in-law and her husband before sitting down at her plate. Ravi had a faraway look on his face. For the tenth time that day, Chandrashekar wished his wife hadn’t left him alone.

He gave up pretending. He stood suddenly from his chair. His plate was untouched. Before Ravi could open his mouth, he had walked to the sink and washed his hands. “Appa?”

Suman looked at her father-in-law, bewildered. In many ways, Chandrashekar was an orthodox man and true to Hindu tradition, he never let anyone or anything interrupt his meals. Chandrashekar came back to the table, wiping his hands with the towel that was a permanent fixture around his neck. “Ravi, I need to talk to you.”

Ravi got up to wash his hands, as Suman sat frozen, unsure of what she should be doing. Chandrashekar motioned to her to follow him into the verandah. “This is for you too.” He sat down in his easy-chair, seeking comfort in its familiarity.

“I don’t know how I’m going to tell you this.” Chandrashekar’s eyes welled up. He dabbed at the edge of his eyes with his towel as Ravi and Suman exchanged concerned glances. Ravi and Suman sat together in the sofa across from Chandrashekar.

He took a deep breath and turned his face to them. “This is very painful. I had no right to do this to you, especially to you, Suman. But you have to understand, I did not believe a word of it when my father first told me and I don’t believe it now. That’s why I did not say anything to your parents when Ravi and I first came to meet you. Who can believe in a curse? Tell me! I wish your mother were here now. She would know what to do. It’s just like her to leave me and go away. I wish I had died first. Now I feel responsible for the pain you two are suffering…” Chandrashekar got up and started pacing the floor.

“Appa, will you tell me what’s going on? You’re not making any sense. Suman, get him a glass of water. Appa, calm down! Here, sit down and relax.” Ravi held his father by the arm and brought him back to his chair.

Suman rose to go to the water filter in the dining room. She was bewildered. For the moment, her turmoil was forgotten. She was concerned for her father-in-law. She had never seen him like this before.

Chandrashekar gulped down the water gratefully.

The Alibi - Part V (Final)

Please read this for background on this series. Thanks.

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The Alibi (contd.)...

“Do you want to rest now and talk later? This is not good for your heart. You know what the doctor said.”

“No, Suman. I’m OK. I have to do this now. It has gone on far enough.”

“Ravi, our family goes back ages into history. You know that, don’t you? We can trace our origins to the royal family of Saurashtra. Our ancestors were kings. They ruled large kingdoms and fought bloody wars to conquer other kingdoms. The legend is that one of the kings who ruled in the early part of the seventeenth century fought a war against the neighboring kingdom. He thought that the conquest would be easy. As it turned out, the war was prolonged and it took a lot of lives. Eventually, he won...

“Appa, are you telling us a story now? What has this got to do with anything?”

“Just listen to me! Don’t interrupt. In the course of the war, the enemies lost not only their king, but also the future heirs, leaving the queen widowed and childless. She laid a curse on our family. Our bloodline would never be passed on.”

Ravi stared at his father, his mouth suddenly dry.

Chandrashekar paused and looked at Ravi and Suman. Convinced he had their attention, he continued, “Sure enough, the king’s son, the prince, who eventually got married, was childless. He was forced to adopt the son of his sister so that the throne would have an heir. Later, it turned out that the adopted son fathered two children. Everybody was relieved, believing that the curse had worn off. But then, a strange thing happened. The next generation went childless again. This pattern has been unbroken for the past two centuries. Every alternate generation has to adopt.”

“So what you are saying is that you were adopted? And…I’m not going to have any children of my own? Because of a curse?” Chandrashekar countered the beseeching look on his son’s face with a slow nod.

“Suman, I am very sorry. Nothing I can ever do or say will ease the hurt we have caused you. I had no right to keep this from you or your parents. May be you would have had children of your own. This family is cursed. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Chandrashekar sank into his chair, the weight of his guilt – heavier than the relief he felt at not having to hide the secret any longer – buried him deeper into the cushions, making him appear smaller, more frail.

Ravi sat back from the edge of the sofa, resting his suddenly aching back against the back cushion.

Suman lowered her eyes to the gleaming red oxide floor.

Silence descended on the house, broken only by steady ticking of the old grandfather clock.

The End

Blogging Break and Short Story (The Alibi)

I'm off on a little break.

Although I know I will have plennnnnnty of inclination, I may not have the time or the technological wherewithal to write new posts.

So, I request your induldgence as I leave you with one of my longish short stories, The Alibi.

Today, I'm posting the first part.

Over the next few days, parts II to V will appear, but I will post it as the story would read as if you were reading it from the beginning, i.e., the second part will appear below the first part, etc., so if someone comes to the blog without having read part 1, they will not see part 2 first.

Here goes...

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Anna stares in horror as the boy struggles against the raging current of the river. From the bridge, the favorite part of her morning jog, she looks around, desperate. The horizon is empty.

Anna is stymied. She does not know how to swim. But she looks at the boy and knows what she must do.

So she sprints to the end of the bridge, throws herself on her back and careens down the embankment towards the river. Stones tear at her shorts, a dead branch gashes her thigh.

Anna dives into the water. Arms and legs flailing, she wills her body to move in the boy’s direction. A passing log is a godsend. She looks up. Just a few more feet.

She grabs the boy’s hand. “Hold on!” she screams.

“You are a heroine! You could have died, you know,” the paramedic says as he bandages her thigh. She smiles, her face pale. “You will need a transfusion”, he continues. “You lost a lot of blood.”

One year later, a routine physical. The doctor has bad news. He needs her medical history – including any blood transfusions. Anna is HIV-positive.

Six months later, a letter from an insurance company, the fifth one she has applied to. This too denies coverage.

The reason: unacceptable risk.