“Were you depressed when you wrote this story?” a Grade 3 student asked me at the end of a session on my latest book The Monster at the Window. I was struck by her perceptiveness. This story, about a little boy struggling with difficult emotions, had indeed come to me in the midst of great personal turmoil. In fact, I was glad that the book came out in 2024 – back in 2020-21, when I first wrote this story, hearing the child’s query would have been enough to reduce me to tears. However, in this instance, it reiterated my fervent admiration for children and reminded me, yet again, why children’s literature has become my life’s work.
Childhood is complex. As Katherine Rundell writes in Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, it entails navigating the world without much power and with a deep sense of one’s own vulnerability. The emotional toll this can take on children is immense. Literature cannot resolve such burdens, but it can offer understanding and an outlet.
In The Monster at the Window, I tell the story of little Montu, who confronts a ‘monster’ every time he feels sad, angry or worried – and it makes him feel worse. In the course of the book, he finds a way of diminishing the monster through art. When I shared this story with my mother – usually my first audience – she wondered why I had not eliminated the monster altogether. Wouldn’t the story be better if Montu was able to banish it entirely?
As adults we like to envision childhood as a kind of utopia where all troubles are neatly resolved and life continues to a merry rhythm. Yet, is there anything like a perfect resolution? Most children I narrated the story to, appeared to understand this instinctively. They rejoiced in Montu’s ability to turn his big monster into a small one, but didn’t see any need to banish it. In the activity that followed the storytelling, they thought of their own ways of battling monsters. Some drew, others wrote.
Parents and homes came up quite often as a refuge from monsters. Superheroes were common too. Pondering over these responses made me realise how, even as adults, we often seek out safety nets. Our mind numbs our fears by reassuring us that something or someone will rescue us from our monsters. Part of ‘growing up’, however, is realising that others, including our closest family and friends, can only aid us in our struggles. In the end, we need to battle our monsters on our own. Coming to terms with this is not easy. It often involves grappling with self-doubt and loneliness. But fighting these battles builds character and resilience, and can be tremendously empowering.
So, in the story, prodded gently by his mother, Montu picks up his pencil and eventually draws his own way out of sadness. Some children pick up on this, others need to be lightly nudged into seeing it. Nevertheless, once they get a gist of it, their ideas of self-defence against monsters can be amusing, rib-tickling and even outrageous. One child spoke of beauty – “Monsters hate beauty and I’ll become so beautiful that they won’t be able to withstand me.” Another spoke of releasing a nasty, monster-repelling odour!
Dealing with the emotional challenges of childhood is can be very trying. Yet, all of us need to walk through these alleys as we make our way in a world that can sometimes be ruthless. The best we can do is to keep in touch with our inner child and remember that outside the window lies not just a monster, but a whole, wide world – as miraculous as it’s catastrophic.
A gently told story of a boy who learns to deal with his inner demons, written by Meghaa Gupta and illustrated by Soumya Menon.
Buy a copy of The Monster at the Window here.
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