A Revolution in the Valley
Series: Chronicles of Courage
MY THOUGHTS
I don’t think I have ever read about Palakkad in a book. Palakkad, a place where my paternal grandparents lived and a place my family visited for a few weeks every year when we came to India from the Gulf. Palakkad meant roaming in paddy fields, eating mangoes as they fell from the trees, and a visit to Malampuzha dam — a completely different world from the one we were growing up in. On one such visit to Malampuzha, we stepped in to a hall to see an exhibition. Poster after poster screamed something about the Silent Valley. I remember, clearly, that my cousin and I had made a joke about the name of the forest. It wasn’t until I read A Revolution in the Valley that those memories came back to me.
A Revolution in a the Valley is an epistolary novel where we see Teesta in Mumbai and Jenny in Palakkad strike up a pen pal friendship in 1978 as part of the Connecting our Country Pen-Pal Programme. Through letters, classroom chits, newspaper articles, postcards, and telegrams we learn about their daily lives and loves. Jenny and her activist father live near the Silent Valley forest. Her father is leading a group of activists who are trying to get the government to reverse their decision to build a hydroelectric dam on the Kunthipuzha river. The government believes this will create jobs for people in the area and generate electricity but at the cost of submerging 8.3 kilometers of the Silent Valley and displacing countless animals. Jenny is surrounded by people with differing opinions about the project and her letters to Teesta are filled with stories about the beauty of Silent Valley Forest.
Back in Mumbai, Teesta is a budding journalist eager to become the editor of her school magazine and under pressure to excel at school to please her father. Unable to contain her curiosity she explores a ‘flash of green’, a small patch of mangrove land in the midst of urban sprawl. She quickly falls in love with this place that becomes a retreat, a place for her to write and think. But she observes ‘bad elements’ from the building mafia dumping construction waste and destroying the area. Now she, and her friend, Rajesh are determined to save their favourite place.
The girls write to each other for a period between 1978-1983 where we, the readers, bear witness as Teesta and Jenny grow, understand the cause, and fight to save their beloved forest and mangroves. From hating boys to forming strong friendships, from naive bystanders to active participants, we can’t help but cheer for Teesta and Jenny as we begin to be invested in their lives. We learn about the different movements that helped save Silent Valley, we understand exactly what it means to lose a green area to construction debris, and feel the helplessness and anxiety the girls feel as they fight their battles.
The most amazing thing about the Chronicles of the Courage series has been the relevance of subject matter. Can there be development without destruction, is the central theme of A Revolution in the Valley and could that not be a topical question for the times we live in, today? I am awestruck at the relevance and congruity of the subject matter in these books as our children get to learn about events in post-independent India and how they have shaped the India we live in. This book will force any young reader to wonder whether they could also bring about a revolution or to ask of authorities if development could be brought about without destruction?
Author Bijal Vachharajani, writer of incredible climate-fiction, always has me go down a rabbit hole of research everytime I finish reading one of her books. With this one, she brought back memories of visits to my grandmother’s house and though, I have never been to Silent Valley, I now am eager to visit with my family. As in her earlier books, A Cloud Called Bhura and When Fairyland Lost its Magic, she revisits the power of change young people can bring about in the fight to save the environment.
An intriguing and engaging episotolary novel, this one is a must buy for your middle grade reader! Get your copy today!
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