When college friends with similar interests team up, good things are bound to happen. It is no surprise then that Niveditha Subramaniam and Sowmya Rajendran’s illustrated book series, Mayil is a favourite among school children. Written in the form of 12 year old Mayil Ganeshan’s diary with doodles to boot, the two books, Mayil Will Not Be Quiet and Mostly Madly Mayil portray her daily experiences, some of them ordinary, others truly insightful. Nicknamed ‘Mayilwriter’ owing to her fondness for making up stories, she ‘will not be quiet’, asking questions such as why King Dasharatha didn’t want a daughter and why can’t boys wear tights. Through Mayil’s eyes, we see her world: Thamarai, her younger brother who loves to dance, Amma, who reads to her from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Appa who has surely reached “cuckoodom” and Ki, her best friend. At a literary event held at Stella Maris College, Chennai, the writers laughingly recalled a particular boy’s awe in getting to meet them personally.
In Mayil Will Not Be Quiet, Thamarai’s father scolds him for crying and Appa cooks for the family when he loses his job. Such instances teach young readers not to be limited by others’ expectations of them. Issues such as gender stereotyping and skin colour prejudice find their way quite naturally into Mayil’s conversations and experiences. In the entry titled ‘Guess I look OK’, she worries about her dark complexion and tries on fairness cream, though she feels stupid about it later. Such issues are dealt with in a light manner, so that young readers may form their own opinions.
Mayil is spirited and fun — she quotes from Harry Potter and sometimes pretends to be a boy called Liyam, which is Mayil spelled backwards. She is also very smart, developing her very own video game Paati on Wheels, which wins her the title of Star Champ at school. Having an opinion on just about anything, she writes on Hanuman, “He’s my favourite. Imagine thinking the sun is a fruit and wanting to eat it!” Staying true to life, her journal entries show her to be an Indian girl; her story is at once both local and universal. Maybe that is the reason readers find her so relatable. Prasanna Grace, an avid reader of the series says, “I only wish I had discovered it sooner! Girls never get to do what they want, but Mayil goes about doing things her own way. It also opened my eyes to the different ways boys are restricted in society and at home.”
In Mostly Madly Mayil, we revisit Mayil, who is ‘13 going on assertive 14’ and she is as curious as ever. Together with her friends, she discovers Facebook, makeup and more. She continues to ask questions rather than be silent, even picking out caste distinctions made in Harry Potter! In Mayil, we see ourselves, her experiences become ours.
Pick up her diary if you enjoy YA diary novels like The Diary of A Young Girl or Diary of A Wimpy Kid.
Staying true to life, her journal entries show her to be an Indian girl; her story is at once both local and universal. Maybe that is the reason readers find her so relatable
