Children’s Book: Story set in India – Elephant story book

I have been proven wrong about the YouTube video of Viku and the Elephant.

YouTube Video of Viku and the Elephant

A few months back, when Steve Medellin told me, “We can make a YouTube video of your animal story from India ‘Viku and the Elephant,’” I was flabbergasted. I am a writer – this was definitely beyond me.

The first thing that came to mind was: “We have to find a good voice.” Last year, I wanted to do an audio CD of the children’s story with Indian music because the story is based in India, but what trouble I had! I wanted an Indian narrator voice for the elephant story from the jungles in India, but my friend Sanju Choudhury, who was once an All India Radio announcer in New Delhi, was away. Then how do I get the music resembling sounds from the forests of India? I encountered a difficult experience when we went to Kolkata, India in 2010 and searched for a recording studio that could provide Indian music.

A music friend from Vienna, Niranjan Das, gave me the address of a studio and one evening we ventured out with my cousin. There were no lights on some of the streets leading to the studio and where there were lights, they were very dim. Traffic on the road (of all kinds – from buses, trucks, taxis, and private cars to hand-pulled carts and rickshaws) made walking dangerous. The traffic rule in India: go any way you can – lanes are not marked and if there were some old faint marks, no one sees them. Then crowds of people were going in all directions. In addition, there was a temple nearby and loud devotional songs were blasting from loudspeakers. The sidewalks were taken over by vendors. Crossing a street was simply perilous – it requires experience that Indian pedestrians have. I admired the ingenuity of the business men and women. You could buy almost anything for daily living from the sidewalks. These vendors were not rich – they were simply making a living (beggars are almost gone from India). After some searching, we finally found the studio on the second floor of a small building (possible only because my cousin was able to guide us). But they wanted the voice recording first to determine where and what kind of music would be suitable. And the price was exorbitant. I wondered if the price was high because we came from America and Catherine was with us. I gave up.

I stared at Steve as he explained a little more of his YouTube idea. He assured me it would be an easy job and he was going to help. Steve is a media expert who does television commercial designs. Then he told me firmly that “As the author of the children’s book, you should tell the story.” This was another surprise to me.

“But,” I looked at him for a few seconds, “my voice is no good. My pronunciation …”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “Trust me. It’ll be fine.”

Indeed, Steve’s creativity and ingenuity made Viku’s adventures in the forests of India come alive. Many have liked the video.

For the publisher of Viku and the Elephant, Bo-Tree House, click:

Bo-Tree House Publisher of Viku and the Elephant