topics: |  fiction | indian-english | children

Review

A far-ranging children's fantasy involving aliens who arrive on a whale-shaped spaceship and attempt to link up with penguins who are the true intelligence on earth.

Like other Indian children's books of recent times (e.g. Himanjali Sankar's The Stupendous Timetelling Superdog, or Anushka Ravishankar's Moin and the Monster, the audience for this book would be mostly anglicized English-medium Indian children (like this reviewer). However, there is little here that such a child can connect to. Vallath's protagonist Kia is adept at reciting Shakespeare, and the mighty Oops looks like a pumpkin, a vegetable more familiar in connection with halloween than in an Indian context. The character in history mentioned is Attila the Hun.

Thus, all place and character names are non-Indian, so the story has no locale, neither here nor there. Perhaps this was the intention, but this results in characters that lack believability and a work that, in the end, the reader fails to invest much emotion into.

Excerpts

A Whale of a Time

When they saw the whale, Chuck and Kia were searching for rocks in the park.

They had to collect different samples from all over the neighbourhood and
catalogue them for a school project.

It had come as a major shock to Kia when she found out that she was paired
with Chuck for the project.

‘Maybe it is because the teacher wanted to average out our IQs,’ she had
consoled herself.  Kia was Chuck’s neighbour. When they had moved in some
months back, Kia had been enthusiastic about being friends until she found
out that Chuck could neither do four-digit multiplications in his head nor
recite Shakespeare’s plays without skipping any line. She believed any
half-witted fourteen-year-old should be able to do these, even with his eyes
closed! She quickly classified Chuck as a doofus. When she felt a bit more
indulgent, she would refer to him as a laughing jackass.

Chuck, from Chuckler, so nicknamed for his habit of chuckling and laughing,
had been excited to find that he had a new neighbour and even more excited to
find that she was his classmate.  But he soon came to the conclusion that Kia
was an insufferable know-it-all, a view shared by most people, which is why
she was nicknamed Kia. She was so nerdy that even sitting next to her made
one better at maths. Granted, she was quite pretty, if one were to ignore her
glasses. But she spoke far too much, and Chuck used to wonder when she ever
got a chance to breathe. ‘Maybe she has hidden gills,’ he had confided to his
mother.

Chuck wanted to wind up the rock-hunting quickly and play with his friends. A
Saturday evening spent with a super nerd was not his idea of fun. He kept
showing all sorts of different rocks to Kia to push the thing along, though
she was behaving like a really ill-tempered warthog: ‘Chuck, really, just
because that rock is perfectly round, it doesn’t make it special!’ ‘That is
dried deer turd, you moron!’ ‘How do you expect us to cart a ten kg rock to
school?’


In spite of these minor objections, they managed to round up a fair
collection of colourful rocks.  

It was then that they saw the whale.

This whale was not thrashing around and spouting in the sea as good,
well-mannered whales should. This one seemed to be absolutely clueless about
natural habitats. It was floating in the sky right above them.

Chuck and Kia were frightened out of their wits.  A whopping hundred-foot
whale, silently floating twenty feet above their heads, was something
slightly outside the realm of possibility. The fact that the whale was
grinning in a sinister fashion made them even more petrified.

Kia clutched Chuck’s hand in terror. While the apparition made Chuck
speechless, the effect on Kia was to galvanize her into what she did best —
talk. ‘It is gurr-gurrr-gur-inning!’ she managed to stutter, her voice
shaking. But then her natural instinct took over, and she went on to explain
that this could be a mutant whale with flying capabilities created by the
dumping of nuclear waste into the sea. The alternate explanation was that the
evening sun had made them hallucinate. But this was less probable since they
were both seeing the same thing and there was no way that the sun could have
acted the same way on her superior brain and Chuck’s rather more frivolous
one.

They studied the whale. Their initial fear had given way to curiosity,
and neither of them wanted to miss the treat of a lifetime by walking away
from a flying, grinning whale.

‘Heehaw, heehaw,’ brayed the whale encouragingly in a soft, crooning voice.

‘The whale is a bit confused, I think. Or one of his parents was a donkey,’
said Chuck thoughtfully. ‘A crooning donkey and a flying whale rolled into
one?  Am I going nuts?’

The whale slowly descended till it was five feet above the ground. After
hovering there for some time, it landed on the ground as lightly as a
feather.

Instinctively, Kia and Chuck hid themselves behind a tree and peeped out.

The whale wriggled around a bit to find the most comfortable position, and
then opened its mouth wide. The inside of its mouth was as big as a room and
it had steps leading down to the ground. As they watched in fascination, a
pumpkin came down the steps.

The Mighty Gurgle

The pumpkin was about three feet high and two feet wide. It had two huge
eyes, two large ears, and a pig-like snout. Its wide mouth seemed to be
smiling all the time. Attached to the round body were two pudgy arms and two
short stubby legs.

Chuck and Kia held their breath. Kia held her breath a bit too hard, and she
sneezed.

The pumpkin jumped, looking startled. It peered around and spotted the
peeping pair. It stared at them fixedly, ready to run at the slightest
provocation.

Chuck gathered up courage and walked over to the pumpkin.

‘Ooee bree gurr?’* asked the pumpkin, bowing politely.

‘Eh? How is that again?’ asked Chuck, trying to decode this fascinating
series of grunts.  

‘Oh, English speaking,’ said the pumpkin in a Texan drawl.

‘Yes. Well, who are you?’ Chuck asked.  The pumpkin took a long look at him
and said, ‘Oops.’

‘Why? What happened?’ asked Chuck.

‘My name is Oops,’ said the pumpkin.

‘Are you all right? Are you hurt? Does it hurt to say your name? Have you
forgotten your name?’

Kia gathered enough courage to peep over Chuck’s left shoulder.

‘My name is Oops,’ said the pumpkin again.

‘Kia, I think it means its name is Oops,’ said Chuck helpfully. Having talked
a whole sentence longer with the pumpkin than Kia, he now considered himself
more of an expert on Pumpkinese; or to be more precise, English spoken by
pumpkins.

‘Oh my god! That is so lame! This is the first time I have heard a name like
that,’ said Kia.

‘Yeah, sure! As if you meet talking walking pumpkins every day!’ said Chuck.

‘I am not lame. Neither am I to be referred to as "that" or "it". I am Oops,
son of Aha. A bit of respect would be in order,’ said Oops haughtily.

‘What are you?’ asked Kia.

‘Gurgle,’ said the pumpkin.

‘I think there is a frog in your throat,’ said Kia, laughing.  

Oops drew himself up to his full height. ‘I am a gurgle, you female moron. I
come from a time much later than yours, in a different dimension. We gurgles
are dangerous. So don’t mess with us. Laughing at us is the worst form of
messing with us, almost as bad as making juice from us,’ he said, trying to
look dangerous. He also growled to drive home the point.

The growl did not work too well since the gurgle had the voice of a
four-year-old child.

‘How dare you call me a moron? Do you know I have an IQ of 179? Anyway, what
do you mean you come from a time much later? Do you mean to claim that you
are a time traveller from the future?  And what do you mean by a different
dimension?’

Kia seemed to be playing ‘twenty questions’.

‘Okay, you may not be a moron; just primitive.  Yes, I am a time traveller
and I come from several million years in your future. I also come from a
parallel dimension, where the reality is slightly different from that in your
dimension. In our dimension, gurgles are the dominant intelligent species in
the universe.’

‘I don’t believe it. Time travel is possible only in theory. And the
existence of parallel dimensions is complete science fiction. You must be
mistaken.  Maybe you are a mutant who has schizophrenia?’ Kia was well versed
with the various theories on time travel.  

Oops was not amused by this and expressed it by snorting with great
dignity. Gurgles did not lie, he said. And that she, with her IQ of 179,
should not lightly dismiss things she did not understand.

‘You mean to tell me that there is a parallel reality in which pumpkins
become the dominant intelligent species far into the future?’ Kia asked
skeptically.

‘Pumpkin? I am not a vegetable. I am a gurgle,’

Oops said indignantly, again drawing himself up to his full three feet one
inch. ‘In the distant past, millions of years back, our ancestors were
pumpkins.  But we hate to talk about that. And humans in our reality tremble
at the sight of gurgles. We eat them alive if they so much as sneeze at
us. So better not call me Pumpkin or ... or Shorty, for that matter.
Understand?’ Oops tried to look threatening.

Kia and Chuck exchanged glances. Oops looked so incongruous in his
threatening posture that Chuck was giggling soundlessly. Kia contented
herself by dimpling in a more dignified manner.

‘What brings you here?’ asked Chuck.

‘I want beer,’ said Oops.

Chuck raised his brows, while Kia looked at Oops in distaste. Jumping
millions of years and multiple realities to glug down beer seemed a little
desperate.  ‘Are you old enough to consume alcohol?’ Chuck asked.  

‘Don’t insult me, human. I am a fully grown gurgle. And consume beer? Don’t
attribute your human vices to gurgles. We use beer to run our spitters, that
is, our Space Time Reality Jumpers,’ said Oops. He pointed to the
whale. ‘That is my spitter, the Billennium Falcon.’

‘Oh, the whale is a ship? Why does it look like a whale? And what is with the
donkey crooning?  Donkeys do not croon in this country,’ said Kia grandly, as
if any donkey found guilty of being musical in their great country was liable
for instant arrest.

‘We don’t like to startle beings of the space time reality we jump to. So the
computer is programmed to make the spitter appear like a local creature. For
good measure, it also gives out sounds like the creature.’

‘Well, I guess it doesn’t know our reality too well. Whales don’t come flying
out of the sea. So to see one floating in the middle of a park will have
people running for cover; especially when it brays like a donkey. That is a
strict no-no. Only donkeys say "heehaw", and they don’t use a horrible
crooning voice for that. Your computer is nuts,’ said Kia.


‘I wonder how that mistake happened. My controller programme is the latest
generation, with all possible data of all realities and eras. In fact, it
even has a personality. I just got it installed. It is called Critter, short
for Controller of the Spitter,’ said Oops worriedly, looking at the spitter.

The whale grinned, winked, and gave out a loud guffaw.

‘Oh wow! His personality includes a mad sense of humour!’ said Kia.

‘Enough. Change your shape into something else,’ Oops told the spitter.

It instantly turned into a cow.

Oops explained that the cow was only the visible part and the rest of the
spitter was in hyperspace.  ‘Now I need your help, humans. I need you to take
me somewhere where I can get some beer. I don’t need much. Just a couple of
cans will do.’ ‘I can’t believe a couple of cans of beer can create the
energy required to drive the ship across space and time. I thought you needed
to create wormholes in the fabric of space-time, which requires enormous
amounts of energy,’ said Kia, doing her best to convince this impressive
being that her IQ was indeed 179. ‘I can explain the entire theory behind it
...’


‘Yes, yes, some other time, I am sure,’ said Oops hurriedly. Physics always
gave him a mild headache, and since most of him was his head, this was rather
inconvenient. ‘We do require enormous amounts of energy to run the
spitters. Most aerated liquids can be broken down to subatomic levels using
the latest technology. That releases these enormous energies — a bit like your
nuclear energy — and the engine uses the energy to jump. The wormholes are made
by specially developed worms that eat through the fabric of space-time. They
also eat through one’s supply of potassium salts if they are not kept in
check.’

‘Worms? Physical, live worms? Wormholes are just a mathematical concept,’ Kia
said in astonishment.

Chuck, who had heard of wormholes in his favourite animated sci-fi TV series,
had assumed vaguely that they involved live worms. He was happy to hear that
in this case he, and not Kia, was right. Wormholes as mathematical concepts?
What stupidity would they come up with next?  ‘Well, for many millennia, that
is what physicists believed. Then there was an accident in the lab of a
famous scientist who was working on genetically engineering worms to become
bookworms that could devour all ancient books and texts and convert them to
digital formats. This led to the creation of a really hungry worm that
managed to chew through five manuscripts, ten dictionaries, the scientist’s
lunch, Gone with the Wind, and a bit of space-time, all in one second. This
created a wormhole in space-time, and the scientist, who was holding the worm
in his hand, suddenly found himself on top of Mount Everest wearing shorts
and a t-shirt. Luckily, he fell back through the wormhole into his lab and
only broke a leg.’ 

‘If most aerated liquids can create energy for the ship, why use beer?’

‘Oh well, the person who invented the technology had a can of beer in hand
when he was building the first engine. So he used beer. After that, the
demand for beer went through the roof. The beer companies then lobbied to
keep all new research out. So we are stuck with beer as the most effective
fuel. Anyway, can you help me get the beer?’

Chuck suggested that they go to his house, where there was sure to be a
six-pack. Kia also wanted to go along. The problem was how to get home
without anyone noticing a walking pumpkin.

Oops solved that problem. ‘We can vamooze. Just hold my hand, both of
you. And Chuck, tell me the address of your house. My universal transporter
will automatically vamooze us there.’

Chuck gave him the address, and both kids held on to Oops, wondering what
vamooze was all about.

Oops took his remote and looked at it.

Chuck felt a funny feeling run through his body, similar to the shiver he had
felt when he had banged into the principal’s ample tummy and knocked him down
while charging down the school corridor. The only difference was that there
was no yelling and detention this time.  

The shiver passed, and the three of them found themselves in front of Chuck’s
house. So that is what vamoozing is, thought Chuck.

Oops explained that his remote was thoughtoperated and had the map of every
location. He had to just think of going to any address and the teleportation
would happen.

Chuck opened the front door quietly and peeped inside. No one was around.

They tiptoed into the kitchen — or rather, two tiptoed and one sort of
rolled. Chuck opened the fridge to take out the beer cans.

That was when Floppy, Chuck’s golden retriever, made an entry. The most
exciting object he had hitherto seen was a kitten that Chuck’s friend had
brought. Having explored the kitten by sight, smell, hearing and subtle
touch, Floppy had tried to also figure out its taste by trying to swallow
it. The kitten quickly put an end to

Floppy’s scientific research by adding three deep furrows to his nose.

This new object seemed miles ahead in excitement quotient. Floppy charged
across the room with an excited yelp, straight at Oops.


Oops also let out a yelp. But whereas the yelp of Floppy was full of joy and
hope, the yelp of Oops was one of pure terror. In one awesome bound, he
parked himself on the top of the fridge. The energy he displayed was almost
similar to that of a spitter drunk on a couple of cans of beer.

‘Wh-wh-what wild beast is that?’ he asked, once he was satisfied that Floppy
could not fly, even when he wagged his ears and tail vigorously at supersonic
speeds.

‘It is called a dog. I take it you don’t have dogs where you come from. It is
quite safe. You can come down,’ said Chuck with a suppressed chuckle as he
caught hold of Floppy’s collar and dragged him away. Kia, not so polite, was
clutching her sides and laughing.

Oops clambered down cautiously. He made sure there were a fair distance and a
couple of kids between himself and Floppy.

‘Okay, now that you have the beer, let us go back.’ he said.

‘What is all the noise in there?’ asked Chuck’s dad as he appeared at the
bottom of the stairs with Chuck’s mother right behind him.

‘Oh, oh. I can’t be seen by anyone,’ said Oops as he pulled out the remote
and pointed at Chuck’s parents. ‘I have no option but to erase them.’

‘Noooo. Please. They won’t do anything to you.  They are sweet, nice people,’
said Chuck in complete panic.  

‘Sorry. We have standard operating procedure.  Section 11.3.7 in the Young
Cadet’s Handbook,’ said Oops as a red beam came out of the remote and
enveloped Chuck’s parents.

The effect on them was very different from what Chuck had expected. For a
moment, they froze and their eyes glazed over. After a few seconds, they
burst out laughing.

‘They will laugh for the next two minutes. After that they will forget
everything that happened in the last half hour. That is how we erase the
memory,’ said Oops. ‘Now there is something I must do.’

He went over to the two adults, who were telling each other silly jokes,
clutching their sides, and laughing their heads off.

He bowed politely and said, ‘Oh, intelligent minds, I deeply regret the
action I have had to take in erasing part of your esteemed memory. This was
unavoidable, and I am sure you would have been happy if you had realised that
it was for the good of your race. I also apologise for the fact that you will
feel rather silly after you finish your laughing fit. As a penance, for a
whole week, I will stop taking potassium salts.’ He bowed again and came back
to Chuck and Kia.

of the last minute. For a moment, he had had visions of his parents being
atomised. Instead, to see them both laughing hysterically made him weak.

‘Okay, let’s go,’ said Chuck as he caught hold of Kia, and she in turn caught
hold of Oops. Oops pulled out his remote, and a shiver later, Chuck and Kia
found themselves in one spacious room with massive LCD-type screens on the
walls and a control panel against the wall.

‘Back safe,’ said Oops.

‘We’re in the ship!’ said Kia.

‘I don’t like the funny feeling when we vamooze,’ said Chuck.

‘Woof woof,’ said Floppy.

Oops jumped. ‘You brought that vicious animal along,’ he said accusingly.

‘Sorry. I was holding his collar. Didn’t know he would get pulled along,’
said Chuck apologetically.

‘Avast, you scurvy rats! How dare you set foot on my ship!’ thundered
Blackbeard the pirate, appearing suddenly. He was fearsome: tall, broad, with
a long black beard, a patch over his left eye and a demented look in his
right. He brandished a long, sharp cutlass at Chuck and Kia.

Chuck froze. His first real pirate did not look anywhere as romantic as he
had imagined. He heard Kia gasp and felt her clutching his shoulder.
Gathering up his courage, he said, ‘Chill, dude!’ 

This advice, though reasonable and delivered with the best of intentions,
seemed to infuriate Blackbeard. He raised his cutlass high in the air,
uttering bloodcurdling sounds. Chuck was debating whether to jump aside or to
head-butt the pirate in the stomach when Floppy took the decision out of his
hands. With a vicious snarl, he jumped at Blackbeard, his mouth open to
deliver a telling bite.  Floppy sailed right through Blackbeard and landed on
his head. With a cackle of delight, Blackbeard disappeared, and in his place,
a round spherical head appeared floating in the air.

‘Welcome aboard!’ said the head, grinning and winking.

‘Nice display, Critter. Great way to make guests feel at home,’ said an
annoyed Oops.

Review : Sonal at gingerchai

http://www.gingerchai.com/2013/01/10/oops-the-mighty-gurgle-ramg-vallath/

The plot of the story is totally out of the world, literally! Gurgles are an
extra-terrestrial species evolved from the genetically modified pumpkins on
Earth. As you would have figured out by now Oops is the name of a gurgle and
the protagonist of the story. These pumpkins or gurgles left the planet in
fear being squeezed into pumpkin juice and now live on Unearth. They are well
beyond our time... so far in the future that other species of that time
refer to humans as "pre-primitive". Imagine!! Well just like them there are
many other species each living on their own planets and inter-space travel
is just another casual matter.


 The antagonists are the groinks. They are green colored highly evolved
 pigs. You must be wondering why green. Before you start racking your brains
 of any green colored pig you might have read of, remember that pigs often
 represent greed and envy. The author says that the groinks were so jealous
 of other species that they turned green with envy. Well anyways, this nature
 of theirs turns out be a threat for us on Earth as they are set on taking
 over planets and making them one of their own.

The Intergalactic Governance Council is unable to reach a sound decision and
thus, Oops decides to go and save Earth all alone and prove himself. On his
mission he is aided by two pre-primitives i.e. humans of our era, Chuck and
Kia. Oh! And even Floppy, a dog and another pre-primitive. With the Cerebums
of planet Holibutt, who just worship their butts as their brains are in their
bottoms and are as addicted to Assbook as we are to Facebook (Yeah guys, in
the coming million years ‘having brains in his bottoms’ won’t be an insult,
in-fact another species.), the ‘single and ready to mingle’ emperor of
penguins who sends out matrimonial ads to outer space through the aurora
borealis and other totally bizarre species that come along the journey are
sure to make you laugh out loud.

Review: The Telegraph : Saved by a pumpkin

	http://www.telegraphindia.com/1121214/jsp/opinion/story_16307442.jsp#.Ug9hPkTqX_Y

Oops the Mighty Gurgle (Duckbill, Rs 199) by RamG Vallath begins with a
flying whale and a pumpkin emerging from its mouth. This pumpkin is no
ordinary pumpkin; he is Oops the Mighty Gurgle, who has to save the universe
and who would say "Ooee bree gurr?" to you if he met you. ("Ooee bree gurr"
translates into "Can I jump on your head?", which, we are told, is a "very
polite Gurglese greeting, showing a desire to be friends with someone.")
Since the evil groinks — "porcine green grunters" — are intent on taking over
Earth, it has fallen upon Oops, his human assistants, Chuck and Kia, and
Floppy the dog to save the planet. Oops has to overcome quite a lot of
obstacles on the way. He has to deal with black holes, time travel and
"amorous emperor penguins". At one point, he also had to watch "in shock as
groink after groink stripped off their clothes and jumped into the mud. He
was horrified to see that the groinkesses were doing the same. This level of
social permissiveness... was something he was not used to. Gurgles wore
garments only on their legs, but taking that off in public was quite
unthinkable."

What works for Oops the Mighty Gurgle, apart from its humour, is that it has
in generous dollops everything that children’s books in India desperately
need: improbability and utter silliness. Vallath’s sense of humour is
healthy; he takes the familiar ‘whenever mankind is in trouble, a hero
emerges’ trope and turns it into a work of delightful creativity, complete
with a hero who is a pumpkin. This book will appeal to readers of all ages.