Pump Up Your Book Chats with Sujata And Subhash Kommuru Authors of the Children’s Picture Book Chatur

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Author Sujata and Subhash Kommuru

About Sujata & Subhash Kommuru

Subhash and Sujata hail from India. They migrated to the United States along with their memories of childhood and youth. Now that they are parents, just like every immigrant they crave to introduce their child to the culture and values of their upbringing. Yet it is challenging to teach something while you are in the midst of adjusting to a different culture yourself. Subhash and Sujata both work in different disciplines and have different styles and backgrounds, but it is the upbringing of their son that brings them on the same page. That exact place where they meet is captured and reflected in their stories, where Subhash can express in words, and Sujata can illustrate them beautifully. Where he puts it in black and white, she adds color to it. You get the idea! These stories are their attempt to share a glimpse of their childhood days with their son. He is their inspiration to write short stories that have meaning to them and provide teaching in some shape or form.

Our Goal

Our goal is to introduce kids to Indian culture one story at a time and along the way have some fun. While stories are primarily written in Hindi they are tastefully being narrated in English as well, while maintaing the essence and moral.

Our Promise

Our promise is to always write sensible story with some moral to them.

Chatur Book Tour

About Chatur

CHATUR is a hilarious and entertaining picture book written in Hindi (also with Hindi phonetics) for kids.

CHATUR is a wise laundry man. MAND is a loyal, reliable, albeit sluggish, partner in Chatur’s trade. He is a lazy donkey whose mantra is “Na Na Na hum to aaram karenge!”

Chatur’s ambition and Mand’s attitude doesn’t blend well. So Chatur comes up with a wise plan to reverse his fortune. He brings ATAL the elephant to do Mand’s job.

The plan starts out well and it did reverse his fortune substantially, but How?

Read Chatur(Hindi) a comical and fun read for kids. It is sure to tickle your funny bones. Bright illustrations are sure to engage readers. Chatur has a humorous theme with a subtle message and young readers not only have a laugh, but towards the end connect with each character and sympathize with them.

The book is written in Hindi script and also in Hindi phonetics to make it easy for everyone to read

Book Excerpt

Hindi:

Yeh kahani hai Chatur dhobhi aur mand gadha ki. Aalsi Mand ka naara hai “NaNa hum to aaram karenge” aur Chatur ki nazar sirf taraki par hai. Jab Mand ka tevar chatur ko khatakne laga, to usne dikhai apni chaturai. Kya chatur ko apni chaturai mehnga padega?

English:

This is a story about Chatur, the Dhobhi and Mand the donkey. Chatur is smart and progressive by nature and his Lazy donkey Mand’s answer to any request was “No No No, I gotta take it easy”. Chatur realized that his success is limited by Mand’s attitude, So Chatur thought of a smart idea, will it work or will it hit him back?

Interview

Thank you for this interview, Subhash. Do you remember writing stories as a child or did the writing bug come later? Do you remember your first published piece?

A: Thank for your giving me the opportunity to share my opinion on your distinctive blog and in front of your exceptional readers. As far as I can remember I was always telling stories, but writing is something that I started only after I became a father. The most effective way to communicate to anyone is a story. If you want to hit home with any concept or any idea you need to wrap it with stories and I have done that a lot during my youth. But my challenge was to do that with my son. He would love it but he needs repetition and that is never easy to use same words with same impact. Dialogues are very hard to remember, you can narrate story with same characters over and over again but dialogues, scene everything changes. And that’s where writing comes to rescue.

My first published piece was way back in college days and it was a speech on women rights. I explicitly remember I was the last guest for the speech was to be published and every one before me had consumed extended time and I was left with 2 min for a 15 min speech. People were checking time and wanting to get over it. I realized that this was a lost battle from get go and if I can’t make an impact now then no one is going to read my papers later, leave alone judges getting to last bit of information. So right there I started to crack jokes and get people attention. For every line I wrote I had a story bubbled around it, be it about a young boys experience at home with his mother or his experience with his girlfriend and supposedly for grown-ups with wife and I tied them all up to how that experience can always bring to a common theme of Love and how a man respects women enough to observe that… Don’t want to get too much into details about that but after 30min of speech people were left wanting for more scrambling for my papers.

I still carry that wit into any story that I write. No matter how serious a subject I must be funny for kids to giggle. Chatur is one of those where base of story is funny and it takes it all the way from start to finish. Be it to address laziness or greed funny is the buzzword.

What do you consider as the most frustrating side of becoming a published author and what has been the most rewarding?

A: As an author the toughest issue is expectation. And this is not about what expect from you, but it’s about what you expect out of yourselves. As you write you make your own boundaries, your own rules and decide to abide by them no matter what. For me one such thing is writing clean and funny content which has moral to them. If I were to not think of my own kid and just write content to make just money then I would call that as lawlessness.

Are you married or single and how do you combine the writing life with home life? Do you have support?

A: This could be very challenging for many but for me this is an asset. My writing career started because of my family and my son is a reason that I write story. He is the inspiration for writing. And wife is a smart talented (…I hope she is reading this…) and understanding. In fact one of her talent is illustration where I can put it in words she can easily color them. When we have a fight I always feel like telling her why don’t you draw and talk to me, you know how they say “a picture can speak 1000 words” J She has illustrated Bargad and is illustrating our next release as well. She brings that feeling and essence to that story that I cannot express in words for instance all my stories have an Indian theme to them, in words I can explain as much as I want but when she draws she brings that background which is engraved so deeply in our minds about india, that serene scene of a village those trees, green plants around, small pond a hut so on and so forth.

If you pick any of my books you can always learn lot more than story itself, with every aspect of background appearance is a window into India. I will caveat my whole statement by saying that Chatur has been illustrated by a fine illustrator ‘Nayan Soni’ he has that unique style that a humorous book demands for and he is from India.

What do you like to do for fun when you’re not writing? Where do you like to vacation? Can you tell us briefly about this?

A: I work as an IT Consultant as my day job, when I am not working I write stories, when I am not writing stories I am thinking of one when I am not thinking of one then I am playing with my son which in turn is helping me with a story which is turn is helping me when I am writing stories. You see how this cycle works. The toughest aspect to separate is writing. No matter what you are doing where you are and what moment you are enjoying somewhere in back of your head there is a recording device which will later feed into your writing. It’s like those security camera’s they may not trigger anything upfront but when you analyze it you can make most out of it.

Most of our vacation we spend in India, visiting families and we have made it a point to always visit one new place. Growing up in India we were always focused on work and academia never in travel. Both I and wife traveled but always for work so now that we are settled in our lives, when we visit India we explore one new place for a week. I like to visit calm places little closer to nature. One of our best experiences had been at Whidbey Island.

If you could be anywhere in the world for one hour right now, where would that place be and why?

A: There is no place like home. I really mean this in my every day, off day and just about any day. Given an option of being on the beach or sitting in my living room, I always pick living room. There is that warmth, that comfort, that friendliness, that familiarity that home provides is second to none.

Who is your biggest fan?

A: Without a doubt it’s my son. I had always thought that my mom would be my biggest fan and she is, but for her it’s more of pride which overshadows everything else and I do dedicate most of my writing to her, but in terms of fan Arya is by far the biggest fan and he is no easy goer, he gives me my toughest challenge.

This is ironic because the other day I was talking Nayan Soni, illustrator of Chatur, and he said exactly the same thing his son is a tough challenge as well. There is a scene in the book where the donkey “Mand” is throwing tantrums and it is a hilarious scene but was defying logic and his son insisted that it be changed and this was a day before we were uploading the book and everything was finalized. So Nayan added a bird to the scene if you see it is a perfect neutralizer and very funny scene to observe.

Where’s your favorite place to write at home?

A: My favorite place to write is with my son. I always try to get some calm and alone time to write but rarely could execute that, it’s only when Arya is around can I do most of my writing. In fact the best thing about doing that is he wants it to be read and since the story is just written and not illustrated he will ask too many poking questions and you can tell that he is trying to put an image in his mind of characters, scene, background set up and things like that. It gives you a direct insight on what he is thinking and what does he desire. And biggest reward is when you see him walk away and enact the scene from book, narrate dialogues and use those characters in his play.

Do you have any pets?

A: Character CHATUR in my book Chatur (Hindi) has a donkey MAND for pet. Mand assists Chatur in his trade of laundry business but the progressive mind that Chatur had he looks towards an elephant ATAL as a pet to do Mand’s job. This tale with unusual pets is hilarious.

Tell us a secret no one else knows.

A: Well this one is by far the best question ever posted to me, I can keep tapping your fingers on this forever, but I guess this genie has to come out of the bottle sooner or later why not share it with this spectacular audience of your blog. My next book ‘Mother’s love can conquer any fear!’ is complete and ready to be released in October. You are the first ones to hear about it.

What’s on your to do list today?

A: I guess today I will be playing for a little bit with my son, see if my better half wants me to fix dinner or as always enjoy a delicious meal cooked by her. I will feed some content for my fans on Social media. I will respond to all the communication related to my books. I like to finish up all the tasks same day rather than carrying it over for long. Then I will read books to Arya now before you get too curious about which book let me tell you, I don’t have a choice he decided which book(s) he wants to be read and I will only disclose this his favorite author is Subhash Kommuru.

I understand that you are touring with Pump Up Your Book Promotion in September via a virtual book tour. Can you tell us all why you chose a virtual book tour to promote your book online?

A: It’s an interesting question. I guess idea of writing book and actually publishing is to reach out to readers and expose your content to people who can use it. Objective is that kids everywhere can pick up your book and enjoy and giggle for the moment but carry values into their adulthood. So question really becomes how do you reach them? If you want to say promote a movie, you will reach out to folks on Television because it’s a product that is consumed by eyes, so if you want to reach readers you should reach out via a medium that encourages reading. A virtual book tour is just that and if you Pump Up then you are Pumped Up!

Thank you for this interview, Subhash. Good luck on your virtual book tour!

A: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to reach out to your distinguished audience and be able to share my views with everyone here. I would be very pleased if my view could make any difference in anyone’s life. My goal with writing Chatur is also very simple; put smile on those cute faces and gives them a lesson to learn. Spark creativity in their minds and channel thoughts in positive way. Remember every child deserves love and attention and book is the best possible medium to connect with young hearts. I hope you consider Chatur(Hindi) to reach out to beautiful minds.

Book Information:

Title of Book: Chatur (Hindi)

Link to photo of book cover (an attachment is fine):

ISBN: 978-0-99-03178-0-7

Genre: Children’s Picture Book

Publisher: Kommuru Books

Publication Date: September 2014

# of Pages: 28

www.KommuruBooks.com

Title is available at Amazon

Pick up your copy at Barnes & Noble

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