Hungry like a wolf! (for stories)

Nari! Nari!
(Untuk Bacaan Rakyat Malaysia)
Uthaya Sankar SB

The moment the author started narrating part of his story at a book reading event recently, I was transported back to the late 1960s. My sister and I, both toddlers, enjoying the spring of lives, without a care or worry in our lists, were living in bliss in Brown Gardens. This is one of my earliest memory of my childhood that I can remember. Puthu Atteh (new aunt), the newly married lady (then) with an infectious toothy smile, was renting a room in my parent's abode. Every living day was a day filled with adventure, exploring new nature's gift to game play. With our neighbour's battalion of kids of two families, we played 'masak-masak' - 'cooking' up a dishes with leaves, drain water and twigs! and 'robbers and thieves' - hiding behind trees and in culverts!

Night-time was out of bounce for games and we were homebound. To let our imagination go wild, there were Puthu Atteh's children stories.

Till this day, I remember many of her stories. I was pleasantly surprised when one of her stories was narrated in this book. It is the story of two bosom buddies, a monkey and a crocodile. This unlikely friendship helped each other discover the other's world of living. They were so close that the crocodile's wife was jealous of their friendship that she faked a disease which could only be cured by ingestion of monkey liver! And guess who had the unenviable task of garnering the monkey liver, Mr. Crocodile! The climax of the story is how Mr. Monkey outwits Mr. Crocodile. I remember how the ending created a lot of debate with Puthu Atteh, on the authenticity and credibly of the story.  We were told just to accept the tale. It was, after all, just a story!

Anyway, this small well-illustrated book is a perfect book for young readers to stimulate their imagination and creativity. 'Nari Nari' means 'Wolf Wolf' in Tamil. It is a compilation of many short folklores. No, there is no 'Cry Wolf' story! 

Folklores used to be an old age tool to keep children entertained and to keep them pre-occupied, out of the way, whilst the adults kept the tribe going. It is interesting that even though civilisations sprung independent of each other, devoid of contact with the another, they still have many common elements. The wolf is always portrayed as the devious, conniving, cunning and sometimes brutal animal who uses his wit rather than his might to get things his way or to escape precarious situations! In Oriental, Indo-European, Persian, Finnish, North American, African and Old European cultures, the image is the same. Maybe, these traits must have been unveiled by Man during their cavemen days when the interaction with the elements of Nature was much closer. The pack of wolves were fighting for the same place under the Sun with a family of hominids!

** Wolves and their not-so-distant cousins, the Foxes share many traits. The Wolves, however, carry a much darker images of greed, evil and destruction. Even the Abrahamic scriptures have not spared these creations of God.