Rajesh Talwar, noted screenplay writer, author of several books, and a lawyer, has a new book on the shelves. The latest from his stable, Fabulous Four Battle the Zoozoo Wizard, is a tale of adventure targeted at children.
Enid Blyton had gifted children across the world with 'Secret Seven' and 'Famous Five'-- Rajesh has created what Indian children missed-- a connection to those characters in the books. His idea was to create an Indian adventure series in which Indian children get together and have adventures.
Talwar has a rich body of work ranging from social justice to law and culture. He is the author of the popular satire on the law criminalising homosexuality Inside Gayland. His more recent plays include Kaash Kashmir that examines the conflict in the valley and Gandhi, Ambedkar and the Four-Legged Scorpion, a historical play on Gandhi and Ambedkar.
Here is an excerpt from the book:
"An evil wizard called Zoozoo ruled over a neighbouring land, which in his
arrogance he had named after himself as Zoozooland. He fancied himself to
be a man with literary taste, and he wrote a song for his followers to sing in
his honour.
‘Zoo zoo be doo,’ went the song. ‘Zoo zoo be doo.’
And his followers, who were mostly paid soldiers, would push forward their
hands and legs backwards and forwards in a robotic fashion.
‘Zoo zoo be doo. Zoo zoo be doo,’ they sang. They were trying to dance, but
it looked more as if they were doing exercises.
Zoozoo clapped with pleasure and shouted: ‘Zalzala! Zalzala!’
No one knew exactly what this meant, but he used the expression frequently.
Zoozoo had a long, blood-red face with a tattoo in the shape of a spider on
each cheek. Thick bristly eyebrows did a zigzag over his green eyes, which
glittered like emeralds. He wore a long white tunic and white shoes all the
time. He had a big, booming voice, and his laugh was so loud and scary that
it made sparrows scatter and squirrels scurry up trees for safety.
Zoozoo didn’t care about his subjects at all. He taxed the poor heavily, and if they
couldn’t pay their taxes they were thrown into prison. His subjects were
terrified of him because he practised black magic and knew how to cast
many fearful spells. People were equally terrified of his sister, known as the
Churail, who helped her brother by preparing magic potions.
His subjects would have rebelled against him a long time ago if they had
known that his army was small, but he managed to make people believe he
was all-powerful, and that certain death awaited those who chose to defy
him. So, the poor people toiled away in the wizard’s factories, pushing and
pulling levers all day long.
How did Zoozoo manage to fool all of the people all of the time?
‘Zalzala!’ he would shout, and fix his green, glittering gaze upon them.
And anyone who saw him immediately fell into a temporary trance.
Even with all his black magic and hypnotic skills, Zoozoo wouldn’t have
been able to keep his subjects in such submissive slavery had it not been for
a special concoction called gulgula that he fed to them. Every week the
contents of a few buckets of gulgula was poured into the Kaala Paani Lake
that provided water to the inhabitants of Zoozooland. This substance dulled
their minds and their ability to think clearly.
Zoozoo was jealous of the good king who ruled Nonamia, but he was scared
to attack him because King Manav had a strong and powerful army. The
wizard’s army was small because he had sent so many able-bodied men
to their deaths on the merest suspicion that they were disloyal to him.
Unable to contain his jealousy, and greedy to grasp more territory, the evil
wizard wondered for a long time about how he could destroy King Manav.
One day he thought of a plan."