Gobble You Up

Tara specialise in publications that are part picture books and part art objects, produced in numbered editions, featuring traditional Indian techniques, and printed on kraft  paper.  They are fascinating to look at and a pleasure to handle. The illustrations here, as is explained in an afterword, are by an artist from Rajasthan, who works in a female tradition of domestic decoration among the Meena people, using lime wash painting originally on mud walls and floors. One of the favourite themes of Mandna, this ancient art form, is animals and their young, including images of pregnant animals revealing the baby within. This story, based on a Rajasthani folk tale, builds on this preoccupation, in a variation of ‘There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly’, to follow a greedy jackal who consumes a variety of animals from fish to, eventually, an elephant. The illustrations, in black and white on brown paper, are stunning. The text by Gita Wolf, also in alternating black and white, is perhaps less well realised, with a cumulative verse from the jackal that is only partly predictable in the manner of ‘The House that Jack Built’, and at least one proof reading error that I noticed. That said, it is a wonderful, if relatively expensive, way to introduce small children and interested adults to Indian folk art.