The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

Title: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
Author: Charlie Mackesy
Publisher: Ebury Press, Penguin Random House UK
ISBN: 9781529105100
Genre: Picture Book, Books for Everyone
Pages: 128
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

The more I live in this world, the more I do not want to interact with most people. I want to stay away from them all, because I also know that they want the same. They just don’t say it. No one has what it takes to say that they do not want to listen to you, or pick up the phone and talk to you, or even be there as a friend. Yet, strangely enough you are called a friend by them. We all like to pretend most of the time.

But once in a while, there comes a book that makes you see the beauty in the world – the love, the forgiveness, the simplicity of perhaps a smile, and what empathy can do for both parties involved. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy makes you believe in the goodness, the niceness, and the joy of being alive, even in a world such as this.

It is about these four – who are lost, unhappy, scared, and don’t have a clue about what to do with their lives, and yet they meet each other, and soldier on. They love, share, talk, and understand what it takes to go from one day to the next. Reading this book made me smile at almost every page, and that healed and helped me immensely.

We all need to pause and consume art that heals. The kind of art that doesn’t weigh heavy on your heart. The kind that (in the most cliché way of them all) sets you free, and you do not even realise that has happened. This book is all kinds of hopeful and wonderful. Something we all could use in times such as these. Yes, I will use all the trope descriptors, but it does feel like a warm hug, a friend holding your hand, and someone who is just there for you, telling you you are loved. Read it. Please.

Chhotu: A Tale of Partition and Love by Varud Gupta and Ayushi Rastogi

Title: Chhotu: A Tale of Partition and Love
Author: Varud Gupta and Ayushi Rastogi
Publisher: Penguin eBury Press
ISBN: 978-0143446149
Genre: Graphic Novel
Pages: 192
Source: Publisher
Rating: 3/5

There are times when you somehow expect so much from a book that even if it disappoints you a little, you tend to take it personally. I understand that sentiment, but do not go by that alone. Look at the book in its totality. Chhotu for sure didn’t live up to my expectations but I loved the premise of it being set in the time of Partition and added to that the angle of love, and more than anything else, taking a page of Maus and reimagining characters as animals. Full points on also Indianizing it.

The book is set in Chandni Chowk and that to a very large extent got me all excited about it, just that I couldn’t empathise or relate to any character. I could see where the story was going. I know most of it. We have heard the same story from our grandparents and what they had to go through during the Partition in one way or the other – of strife, of loss, of not knowing what is going to happen next to them in a country now divided. I saw all of this coming and yet I somehow couldn’t empathise with what was going on.

I was expecting a lot. I wanted more to happen but it didn’t. I liked how the book was structured with famous Hindi song titles as the chapter names and that worked given what was happening in the chapter. The concept is good and would definitely recommend it to people who want to start reading about the Partition. A very good place to start from.