The Elephant God and His Humorous Adventures: Ganesha in Indian Regional Literature

   

An elephant-headed god who loves modak, rides a tiny mouse and is known for his wisdom may sound like the perfect character for a children's story. And Indian storytellers have known this for generations.

Ganesha is one of the most recognisable figures in Indian culture. Children meet him through stories, picture books, grandparents' narration, temple festivals, songs and animated films. But the Ganesha of children's literature is not always a solemn deity seated on a throne.

He can be mischievous, hungry, impatient, clever, playful and even wonderfully funny.

Behind these humorous adventures, however, are messages about friendship, curiosity, intelligence, humility, sharing and learning from mistakes.

The God who can make children laugh

Many traditional Ganesha stories work because they contain an element of gentle humour.

Consider the familiar story of Ganesha and his brother Kartikeya. When the two brothers are asked to go around the world, Kartikeya sets off on his peacock. Ganesha looks at his small mouse and realises that competing in the conventional manner is difficult. So he walks around his parents, Shiva and Parvati, and declares that they are his world. The humour lies in the unexpected solution. But underneath the laughter is an idea that children can understand: Intelligence does not always mean doing something faster. Sometimes it means looking at a problem differently. The story also encourages children to think rather than simply imitate others.

Ganesha's appetite — and a lesson about excess

Another favourite is the story of Ganesha and the moon.

In different regional versions, Ganesha eats a great deal during a feast and, while travelling on his mouse, falls or stumbles because of his enormous belly. The moon laughs at him. Ganesha becomes angry and curses the moon. The story can be retold humorously, with the elephant-headed god struggling with his enormous appetite and his tiny vehicle. But several lessons hide inside the comedy.

Don't laugh at another person's appearance.

Pride can make us insensitive.

And perhaps, more simply for a child:

What seems funny to you may hurt someone else.

The story also explains a cultural belief associated with looking at the moon on Ganesha Chaturthi. Thus a seemingly amusing tale becomes a child's introduction to empathy, consequences and cultural tradition.

The mouse and the elephant

Perhaps one of the funniest visual combinations in Indian mythology is Ganesha travelling on a mouse. A huge elephant-headed God and a tiny mouse seem completely mismatched. Children immediately notice the absurdity. How can such a large deity possibly ride such a tiny creature? This very contrast has made Ganesha especially attractive to children's illustrators and storytellers.

But the pairing also invites interpretation. The mouse is sometimes associated symbolically with the restless, nibbling mind — something that can move everywhere, penetrate everywhere and desire everything.

The elephant represents strength and wisdom.

The tiny mouse carries the enormous Ganesha.

The message can therefore be read playfully:

Size does not determine importance.

The smallest creature can have a role to play.

That is an idea worth giving children.

Regional languages keep these stories alive

What makes Ganesha particularly interesting in Indian children's literature is that these stories don't belong to only one linguistic tradition.

They travel across Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Hindi and many other Indian languages, acquiring local flavours along the way.

A grandmother narrating a Ganesha story in Tamil may emphasise one detail. A Telugu storyteller may add another. A Marathi children's book may place the story within the atmosphere of Ganeshotsav. A Kannada retelling may give the mouse a particularly lively personality.

The core character remains recognisable, but the storytelling changes. That is the beauty of oral and regional literature. A story doesn't remain frozen. It travels, adapts and becomes local.

Humour makes mythology accessible

For children, mythology can sometimes appear intimidating. There are unfamiliar names, complicated relationships, divine weapons, curses and elaborate genealogies. Humour changes that.

A hungry Ganesha, a mischievous Ganesha, a clever Ganesha or a Ganesha who gets into trouble becomes approachable.

Children can laugh at him without losing respect for him. This is particularly valuable in children's literature.

Instead of saying: “HE is a great God. You must learn this story.”

The storyteller says, in effect: “Come, listen to what Ganesha did!” And the child comes closer.

The hidden messages are often simple

The best children's stories don't announce their morals loudly. They allow children to discover them.

Ganesha's stories can quietly teach:

• Think before you act.
• Intelligence can be more useful than physical strength.
• Don't ridicule someone for their appearance.
• Learn to accept your mistakes.
• Small does not mean insignificant.
• Listen to your parents and elders, but also think for yourself.
• Excess and arrogance can have consequences.
• Different solutions can solve the same problem.
• Wisdom includes knowing when to be humble.
• Laughter can make difficult ideas easier to understand.

These are universal lessons, even when the stories are deeply rooted in Indian culture.

From grandmother's lap to the picture book

There is another important dimension to these stories. For generations, many Indian children encountered mythology not through books but through grandparents, parents, temple stories, folk performances and festivals.

A grandmother might tell a story while preparing dinner.

A grandfather might narrate a Ganesha episode during Vinayaka Chaturthi- which is being celebrated today

A child might encounter another version in a Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Hindi children's magazine. Today, picture books and children's publishers have given these oral traditions another life. Illustrations add another layer of humour: Ganesha's enormous ears, round belly, little mouse and mischievous expressions can communicate something even before the child reads the words. The result is a wonderful meeting of oral tradition, regional literature and contemporary children's publishing.

We should not lose the humour

Sometimes, when retelling mythology for children, adults become overly concerned about making every story solemn and instructional. But perhaps that misses something important.

Children don't need every story to become a moral science lesson. They need to laugh, wonder, question and imagine.

Ganesha allows all four.

The elephant-headed God can be divine and still be funny.

He can be wise and still make mistakes.

He can be powerful and still ride a tiny mouse.

He can teach a lesson without sounding like a teacher.

And perhaps that is the enduring strength of Ganesha in Indian children's literature.

The laughter is the doorway.
The story is the journey.
The message is what the child quietly carries home.

In a country with hundreds of languages and storytelling traditions, the humorous adventures of the elephant God show us something beautiful: a story can change its language, setting and style while keeping its heart alive.

And for a child, perhaps the first question is not “What is the moral?”

It is simply:

“What did Ganesha do this time?”

That is exactly where a good story begins.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: More Than “How Do I Love Thee?

 

  When we hear the name Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one line immediately comes to mind:

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

It is one of the most famous openings in English poetry. For generations, readers have associated Browning with love, romance and the celebrated relationship between two poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning.

But to remember her only as the poet of love would be to overlook a remarkable woman who wrote about women's independence, child labour, poverty, political freedom and social injustice.

A poet who began young

Elizabeth Barrett was born in England in 1806. She showed an extraordinary interest in literature from childhood and began writing poetry at a young age.

Her health was fragile for much of her life, and she spent long periods confined indoors. Yet physical limitations did not prevent her from developing a powerful intellectual and literary life.

Books became companions, and poetry became her means of observing and questioning the world around her.

By the time she met Robert Browning, she was already an established poet.

A love story between two poets

Their relationship is one of the best-known literary romances.

Robert Browning admired Elizabeth's poetry and wrote to her. Their correspondence gradually developed into love. Elizabeth's father strongly opposed marriage for his children, and Elizabeth and Robert eventually married secretly in 1846.

They left England and settled in Italy.

Their love is immortalised particularly in Elizabeth's Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection of 44 sonnets describing the emotional journey of their relationship.

And there is the famous Sonnet 43:

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

Yet there is something interesting about this collection. The title Sonnets from the Portuguese can make a reader imagine translations from a Portuguese poet. They are not. They were written by Elizabeth herself. Robert had affectionately called her his “Portuguese”, and the title helped disguise the personal nature of the poems.

The woman who wrote these love poems, however, was much more than a woman in love.

Her poetry had a social conscience

Elizabeth Barrett Browning looked beyond her own circumstances.

In “The Cry of the Children,” she responded to the suffering of children working in Britain's factories and mines. The poem gave poetic expression to the harsh reality of child labour.

She also wrote about slavery, political freedom and the struggles taking place in Italy, the country that became her adopted home.

Her poetry therefore combined personal emotion with public concern.

Love was important to her, but so was the world outside her window.

Aurora Leigh — a woman who wanted to be a writer

Perhaps one of the best ways to understand Browning's thinking about women is through Aurora Leigh, published in 1856.

The central character, Aurora, wants to become a poet.

That ambition matters.

A woman wanting education was one thing; a woman claiming a serious intellectual and creative identity was another.

Aurora Leigh explores questions that remain relevant even today:

Can a woman have ambition without apologising for it?
Can she choose art instead of simply fulfilling society's expectations?
Can love and independence exist together?

Through Aurora, Browning created a woman who wanted both a life of the mind and a life of her own choosing.

The woman behind the famous love poem

It is tempting to separate Elizabeth Barrett Browning into two images.

One is the romantic poet who wrote “How do I love thee?”

The other is the serious Victorian writer concerned with society and politics.

But they were the same woman.

Perhaps that is what makes her interesting.

A woman can write about the deepest personal emotions while also questioning the injustices around her. Love does not make a writer less intellectual. Sensitivity does not mean a lack of strength.

Browning's poetry demonstrates that the personal and the political can exist on the same page.

Why should we read her today?

More than 160 years after her death, Elizabeth Barrett Browning still gives us reasons to return to her work.

She reminds us that women writers have always had something to say about the world, not merely about their private lives.

She reminds us that poetry can be romantic and political, intimate and socially conscious.

And perhaps most importantly, she encourages us to look beyond the one famous quotation attached to a writer's name.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning deserves to be remembered not merely as the woman who asked how she loved.

She deserves to be remembered as a woman who found her voice — and used it to speak about love, freedom, women, children and society.

The next time we hear “How do I love thee?”, perhaps we can pause before stopping there. There is a whole Elizabeth Barrett Browning waiting to be read beyond those famous fourteen lines.

Ten Years of Writing, and a New Chapter Begins

  

 Last Saturday, 5 September 2026, my blog completed ten years.

Ten years of writing, learning, experimenting, submitting, waiting, receiving responses, facing rejections, discovering new possibilities and, above all, continuing to write.

When I look back at this decade, I realise that the journey has been much more than maintaining a blog. It has been a journey of learning through writing and growing through experience.

And today, as I complete the first week of my 11th year, I thought I would begin this new chapter with something close to my heart.

An invitation to those I admire

Before I start approaching the writers, bloggers and people I admire and look up to, I thought I should write about the idea first.

I am planning to invite one writer, blogger, or a person who has done something meaningful and noteworthy in their chosen field to contribute a guest post to my blog.

There will be no prescribed theme.

The person can write about a subject of their choice—something they are passionate about, something they have learnt, an experience they would like to share, an idea they believe in, or simply something they would like readers to know. If everything goes well, I hope to make this a weekly celebration every Saturday for the entire 11th year.

One Saturday.
One guest.
One story, thought, experience or idea.

It is my small way of celebrating not just my blog, but also the people whose work has inspired me along the way.

Ten years have taught me much more than writing

When I started blogging, I simply wrote.

I wrote about whatever interested me. There was no elaborate plan, no great strategy and certainly no understanding of how much the blogging world would change over the years.

Slowly, I began submitting my writings to websites and magazines.

Some selected my work.

Many rejected it.

Both experiences taught me something.

A rejection was not necessarily the end of a piece of writing. Sometimes it meant that I had to improve the writing. Sometimes the publication simply wasn't the right fit. And sometimes, there was no explanation at all.

I learnt to accept rejection without allowing it to stop me from writing.

Over the years, I also learnt things that I had never imagined I would.

I learnt to make videos and reels. I learnt, slowly and somewhat reluctantly, how social media works. I began understanding the importance of sharing one's work and connecting with other writers and readers.

I attended webinars, participated in TBRs and bloghops conducted by Ritu Bindra and Cindy D' Silva, and discovered how much there is to learn simply by being part of a writing community.

Books opened another door

Books have always been an important part of my blogging journey.

What began as writing about books gradually became something more structured. I started approaching publishers and authors for review copies.

Some responded positively and sent me books to review.

Many never replied.

That too became part of the learning process.

I created my own book review policy, which helped me communicate clearly with publishers and authors about what I could offer as a reviewer.

I have now also joined the community of ReviewMyBooks, another new step in my continuing journey as a book reviewer.

The world of book reviewing has introduced me to authors, publishers, fellow reviewers and, most importantly, books that I might otherwise never have discovered.

From reading to reading with children

Another meaningful part of this journey has been my association with Pratham Books as a Reading Champion.

Being connected with Pratham Books and its programmes has reminded me that reading is not only about reviewing books or writing about them.

It is also about sharing stories.

I participated in their programmes for children and conducted a few reading sessions at home. Watching children listen to a story, respond to it and engage with a book brought a different kind of joy.

It made me look at reading not merely as an individual activity, but as something that can be shared and passed on.

And then came the publications

The journey has also taken my writing beyond my own blog.

Recently, my work found space in publications such as Gulmohar Quarterly, On Eating and SWARA.

One of my poems was also published in a PoetrySoup anthology in the USA.

Each publication, however big or small, has brought a sense of encouragement.

Someone somewhere had read my work and thought it deserved a place.

For a writer who continues to write largely because of the love for writing, that means a lot.

The most important lesson: keep going

Ten years of blogging have taught me that writing is not always about immediate recognition.

There are days when a post receives appreciation.

There are days when nobody seems to notice it.

There are pitches that receive enthusiastic responses.

There are emails that remain unanswered.

There are articles that get accepted.

There are others that are rejected.

There are new skills to learn, new platforms to understand and new people to meet.

Through all this, one thing has remained constant—the desire to write.

I may have changed the way I write, the subjects I explore and the ways in which I share my work. But the passion has remained.

That, perhaps, is my biggest achievement after ten years.

A new Saturday tradition

So, as I enter the 11th year, I don't want to celebrate only by looking backwards.

I want to celebrate by bringing other voices into my space.

Every Saturday, I hope to invite someone whose work I admire to write for my blog.

It could be a writer.

A blogger.

An author.

A reader.

An artist.

A person doing meaningful work in their chosen field.

Someone well known or someone whose work deserves to be known better.

The topic will be theirs.

The words will be theirs.

The Saturday space will be mine to share with them.

I know that plans do not always unfold exactly as we imagine. Some invitations may be accepted, some may be declined and some may perhaps receive no response at all.

But that is also part of what these ten years have taught me.

Make the effort. Send the invitation. Keep the door open. Keep writing.

And if this Saturday tradition succeeds for the entire year, I will have 51 more stories to remember from the beginning of my 11th year.

Ten years behind me.

An entire year of possibilities ahead.

And, as always, one more blogpost to write.

Here is to the 11th year of Book Food Language—and to all the voices that may join me on this journey.

(This is the 1ST WEEK- 11TH YEAR- GUEST POST SERIES - POST 1)

Pootling: The Joy of Going Nowhere in Particular

 

 

There are days when we do not want to rush anywhere. We walk slowly, drive without hurry, look at the trees along the road, stop to browse a shop window, make a cup of tea, rearrange a few books, water the plants and perhaps do nothing particularly important. English has a wonderfully informal word for this kind of unhurried movement: pootling. It is a word that sounds almost as leisurely as the activity it describes.

What does “pootling” mean?

Pootling is the present participle of the British informal verb pootle. To pootle means to move, travel, walk or drive slowly and without any particular hurry or purpose. Cambridge gives the sense as moving somewhere slowly and with no real purpose. Oxford describes it as moving or travelling “without any hurry.”

So:

• We spent the afternoon pootling around the old town.
• He was pootling along the country road in his car.
• I like pootling around the garden on Sunday mornings.
• She pootled off to the kitchen to make some tea.

There is something affectionate about the word. Pootling does not necessarily mean being lazy. It suggests doing things at one's own comfortable pace, without being driven by a timetable. Perhaps that is why the word fits so beautifully into today's conversations about slow living.

Where did the word come from?

This is where the story becomes interesting. The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary dates pootle to the 1970s and describes it as a blend of poodle and tootle.  But dictionaries and lexicographical sources also record some uncertainty about its exact ancestry. One explanation traces pootle to an alteration of the earlier poodle, while another suggests a blending of words associated with aimless movement, including doodle and potter.

There is evidence that poodle/poodling existed earlier, particularly in British usage. Lexicographer Sue Butler notes that pootle appears to be a later variant of the 1930s poodle, in much the same playful way that toodle relates to tootle.  So pootle seems to have emerged through exactly the sort of playful word-making that English does so well: sounds and existing words getting blended, altered and softened until a new expression takes shape.

And what a suitable word it is!  Even its sound seems to move slowly: poot-le.

Pootling is not simply “walking”

This distinction makes the word special.

If I say:

I walked to the market.

I have merely described how I travelled.

But:

I pootled to the market.

suggests something more. Perhaps I looked at the flowers outside a shop, stopped to talk to somebody, watched a street vendor preparing food and took a slightly longer route home.

Pootling contains an attitude towards time.

It says: I don't have to get there immediately.

That is why pootling along is such a common form.

You can pootle along a road, pootle around a garden, pootle about the house, or pootle off somewhere.

It can be used for people and, particularly in British and Australian usage, for vehicles as well. A car can pootle along a country lane. A boat can pootle along slowly. A bicycle can pootle through a village.

Did writers use the word?

Yes—and this is where pootle becomes particularly interesting to a reader. It has found its way into modern literature, journalism and travel writing because it conveys something that a more formal word such as travel or proceed cannot quite capture.

For example, Michel Faber uses the word in Under the Skin. His character Isserley gives herself permission to “pootle along” at a relatively modest speed while driving. The word fits the scene because the movement is relaxed rather than urgent.

The word has also appeared in writing about Becky Chambers's A Closed and Common Orbit. A Guardian review describes the characters as tending to “pootle about” rather than driving the larger plot forward. Here the word is used almost metaphorically: the characters are moving through life without constantly pushing the story towards its next dramatic event.

That is an interesting literary use of pootle. It need not describe physical movement alone. A story can pootle along. A person's day can pootle along. Even a novel can be said to pootle along when its pleasure lies more in observation and atmosphere than in rapid action.

Connie Willis's All Clear, for instance, was described in a Guardian review as a novel happy to “pootle along gently.”  The word therefore carries a literary idea of its own: a narrative need not always hurry.

Pootling and the literature of everyday life

This brings us to something larger.

Many beloved writers have understood the pleasure of apparently uneventful moments. A character sitting by a window, walking through a village, wandering around a garden, travelling by an old road or stopping for tea may not be doing very much. Yet such moments can be the heart of a book. The word pootling gives us a modern, informal vocabulary for that experience.

It is particularly appropriate to travel writing. A journey need not always mean reaching ten destinations in three days. Sometimes the best travel is about pootling along a road, noticing what is around us and allowing the landscape to reveal itself slowly.

Contemporary travel writing uses the word precisely in this spirit. Martin Dorey's Take the Slow Road: England and Wales, for example, describes travelling the slower way and speaks of “pootling along the coast.”  That is almost a philosophy of travel in one expression.

Is “pootling” used in ordinary conversation?

Definitely—but there is an important qualification.

It is primarily British and informal. Cambridge and Oxford both mark pootle as British informal English.

It is not a word that every English speaker around the world would naturally use.

In Britain, however, one might quite normally hear:

“What are you doing this afternoon?”

“Nothing much. Just pootling around the house.”

Or:

“We pootled down to the village for lunch.”

There is also a lovely expression:

“Pootle about”

It means to move around casually without any particular destination or urgency.

And:

“Pootle along”

suggests continuing at a gentle pace.

The noun pootle is also possible, particularly in British usage, meaning a leisurely stroll or wander.

Pootling versus pottering

For Indian English speakers, pottering may be a more familiar word.

There is considerable overlap.

Pottering around the house and pootling around the house can describe almost the same activity.

But pottering often suggests casually doing small jobs—especially around the house or garden.

Pootling has a stronger sense of moving or travelling leisurely, sometimes without a particular purpose.

So you might say:

I spent the morning pottering around the garden.

But:

We spent the afternoon pootling around the old town.

Both are wonderfully unhurried words.

Perhaps we need more pootling

Our lives are full of hurry.

We hurry to work. We hurry to school. We hurry through breakfast. We hurry through books to finish the TBR list, films, holidays and conversations. Even leisure sometimes comes with a schedule. That is why I find pootling such a delightful word. It gives a name to an activity that our productivity-driven vocabulary often fails to recognise.

Going nowhere in particular can sometimes be the point.

Pootling may mean taking the longer road home.

It may mean walking through a neighbourhood instead of immediately taking a vehicle.

It may mean browsing a bookshop without knowing what you want.

It may mean sitting with a cup of coffee and watching the world outside.

It may mean opening a cookbook, reading a few pages and deciding that the recipe can wait until tomorrow.

There is no achievement attached to it. And perhaps that is its greatest charm.

A little word for a slower life

Pootling may have emerged from playful combinations of older words, and its precise etymological history is not completely settled. But its modern meaning is wonderfully clear.

To pootle is to move without rushing.

To pootle around is to allow ourselves a little purposelessness.

To pootle along is to accept that not every journey needs to be fast.

In an age obsessed with speed, perhaps pootling is a small act of resistance.

Sometimes we don't need to race towards the next destination.

Sometimes we can simply pootle along and see what we discover on the way.