Making Telugu cool

​Pioneering the endeavour to promote love for Telugu among children and youth, Uma Challa of Naa Telugu Pustakaalu has 15 illustrated titles for children under her belt. A certified skydiver, she is obsessed with making the language “cool” for everyone

“When my daughter turned one-year old-in 2012, my husband and I looked everywhere for fully illustrated Telugu books for children. We could not find any. The ones that were available were poorly translated versions of foreign language books. The few original Telugu books available were lacking in many aspects - quality of language, number of illustrations, relevance of content, quality of paper, size of the book - none of them fully matched the standard of children's books available in the English language. I wanted my daughter to learn Telugu while having fun,” recounts Uma Challa, founder of Naa Telugu Pustakaalu.

The lacuna in vernacular literature, especially for children, led her to a journey with a mission to bring Telugu to the fore. And, so began the label ‘Naa Telugu Pustakalu’—an endeavour to promote love for Telugu among children. “It is the label under which I publish books for children and conduct workshops for them,” informs the author, illustrator and educator who currently has 15 titles under the label, which are illustrated story books for children.

“I thought that there may be other parents like me who might be looking for good quality children's books in Telugu,” she remarks and adds, “Research indicate that proficiency in one's mother tongue is crucial for the learning of all other languages. In addition, books are a very important medium to develop one's depth of language.”

“If we want a child to pick up a Telugu book off a shelf and ask their parent to read it for them, it must appeal to the child in the same manner that well-known English books do. The book should be visually stimulating and when it is read out the content and message should be memorable,” says the author, whose love for language goes beyond just the mother tongue.

Uma Challa is proficient in French and holds Masters in Biological Sciences (State University of New York, New York) and in Anthropology (The Ohio State University, Ohio). During 2000-2002, she was one of the only three Indian women to be a certified skydiver with over 300 jumps at the United States Parachute Association (USPA).

However, her true calling was her undying love for the language, which led her into authoring illustrated books for children.
“Learning language should be incidental. So, I gave a shot at writing, and I wrote 10 books in 2013. I also did the illustrations and published the first set of books in January, 2014. I wrote, illustrated and published another five books in March, 2015,” she says with a sweet smile.

With varied topics such as folk tales, science, ecology, mythology, astronomy and Indian culture as subjects in the titles, one of the most groundbreaking titles has been the book on Telugu vowels (acchulu) written only with words beginning with “acchulu”—an experiment that has never been done before in Telugu literature.

“I think children are inherently curious and inquisitive about everything around them, and if we present them in an attractive way, they will be hooked to both the content and language. My topics and themes are aimed at provoking thought and enhancing children's interest in the world around them, including their roots and culture,” she says on the choice of her titles.

Over the past four years, Uma Challa has organised a host of interactive and creative workshops for both children and adults promote Telugu, which include a musical theatre workshop, an oral skills workshop and weekly workshops at Raahgiri with fun activities that involves people to speak all Telugu sentences without using a single English word.

The future of Naa Telugu Pustakaalu will involve more interactive workshops and celebrations to spread the gift of Telugu language to children and parents. “No matter what stories I narrate, I focus on messages relating to social, environmental and personal responsibility rather than black and white morals,” she concludes.