The Hindu : Kerala / Kozhikode News : Schoolgirl's travelogue finds place in textbook

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 10, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Kozhikode

Schoolgirl's travelogue finds place in textbook

Staff Reporter

KOZHIKODE: U.B. Maya, a Standard IX student of Pavandoor Higher Secondary School in Kozhikode district is on cloud nine these days. Her brother, U.B. Abhishek studying in Standard VI, is also excited to tell his friends that the lesson, `Yathrayile kazhchakal,' is written by none other than his sister.

Fascinated by her father's account of Velliyott Upper Primary School in Nadapuram, where he was a teacher, Maya set out on a journey with her father to the school.

She wrote about it in `Ureka', a magazine brought out by Kerala Sastra Parishad for children, in January 2004.

The State Council of Educational Research and Training, while changing the textbook for Standard VI this year, included it as a lesson in the Malayalam textbook. "I felt happy as I am going for a journey. I am interested in sitting near the window in the bus", she wrote. Ms. Maya, who hails from a rural background, was all excited to make a journey to the school.

"I was excited by the scenes that I saw from the bus. I was also interested in the language of tribals who live near the school,'' says Ms. Maya, with rustic charm.

Ms. Maya's father, C.K. Bhaskaran, is a retired schoolteacher. Her mother, K. Urmila, is a housewife. How about publishing one of the travelogues in a school textbook?

"I feel very happy. I still cannot believe that my travelogue is a lesson,'' says Ms. Maya.

Like Sherlock Homes, the hero of the novelist, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ms. Maya too wants to become a detective when she grows up.

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