Tiny Tales: Ashwathy and the Boot of God

Ashwathy and the Boot of God
by Sowmya Rajendran
Publisher: Puffin India
Pages: 191
Price: Rs 199

When the family cow brings a solitary boot back to a school teacher’s house, nobody could have guessed that God had made her home in it. But nothing is happenstance, it is all by divine design — God has chosen Ashwathy Venugopalan of IX B, Saraswati Vidyalam English Medium School, Kuttipuram, Kerala, the brightest girl in her village. Her task is to solve the murder of Sreeja, a woman dead before her time and intent, now in her afterlife, on finding out who is responsible.

Sowmya Rajendran is a writer to watch out for. The Pune-based author has written a slew of books for little children as well as young adults. Her last title before Ashwathy and the Boot of God was the entertaining graphic novel, Nirmala and Normala, written with Niveditha Subramaniam. In her latest offering, she tells a cracker of a story of a 14-year-old detective who is reminiscent of Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce, a precocious 11-year-old amateur sleuth.

Ashwathy is methodical and self-assured; after all, God has assigned her such an important job. But Ashwathy has to expertly multi-task: there are classes to attend, friends to manage, elders to keep secrets from and dreams where the dead speak and where the FBI fly her to the United States for her expertise.

But the true star of the book is Rajendran’s God who is absolutely hilarious and human — apart from inhabiting a boot, she also brings tea, isn’t on top of things and goes out on dates. Not to mention, her visits to her cousins in other universes during duty hours. Could Rajendran have modelled her God on a government employee?