Clumsy… and so is the Rainbow with a dash and splash of colors…

Clumsy… and so is the Rainbow with a dash and splash of colors…

Can’t you not draw your crayons inside the marking line? How clumsy you are? The teacher did not even leave at that. While coming home, the mother was reminded of the often graze of the child to uncharted territories- coloring the dog as pink, straying out of the dark thick black lines and spilling colors all over the page. This must be our story or someone we know too well. There is an invisible code everywhere, where and how things should be kept, how coloring should be done, how books should be piled, how a dog should look.. all packed into boxes… and if you stray out- you are clumsy, sloppy, careless, slowcoach… In fact the school books turn crimson with angry comments as if the pages shrink in shyness embarrassed at the remarks.

This was happening to the little girl in the book by Ken Spillman viz. Clumsy. A book which peers deep into our souls, pulling out those memories where we were forced to wear straightjackets and remain within the boundaries. What happens to those, who hum a different tune and rhythm, are they to be discarded? To be called clumsy.. what about their names? Who created the rules and benchmarks for the toothpaste to remain within the cap and the shoelaces to be tied neatly. 

Manjari Chakravarti’s illustrations make the story real, you almost feel one with the little girl and her heartbreaks, her shrinking self esteem, till she discovers her rainbow.. the colors which through the messy hands become someone who is not clumsy, who has a name..

The colors danced around her

And she wanted to dance with them…

She painted all her stories,

And she wrote her name in the corner

It was the name her parents had given,

A name that many seemed to have forgotten..

And it wasn’t Clumsy, Slowcoach, Careless, Sloppy, Messy, Butterfingers…

This is a lovely book for all of us, parents, children, adults, who want create rules and then forget the people behind. Everything becomes the rule for us and one straying away is then typified as clumsy……..

Every child and every one is special.. its just that we have to help them find and paint their own rainbows… the world is beautiful as long as it is colored…