Twist in the (fairy)tale

When Fairyland Lost Its Magic is a retelling of eponymous fables with climate change factored in on every page. Targetted at young readers, the book can be quite relatable to adults as well. It is humourous, subtle and grim at the same time. The stories by Bijal Vachharajani are accompanied with black-and-white sketches by Rajiv Eipe. Sample them in these three fairy tales:

RAPUNZEL’S HAIR WASHING DAY

Once upon a time, a man broke into a garden to steal a sprig of rapunzel for his wife. While he was busy clipping the leaves, he was caught by a sorceress who, of course, owned the garden. She, of course, retaliated by stealing this couple’s child and locking her up in a tower so high that it rivalled most industrialists’ fancy buildings. The girl grew up to be Rapunzel with hair so long that it rivalled the number of zeroes in said industrialists’ bank accounts.

But Rapunzel was having a tough time maintaining her hair, especially since the Great Water Crisis had hit Fairyland. Now, the princess could only wash her hair once a week, on Thursday between 6 a.m. and 6.25 a.m. when free-flowing water came in the tap. One such Thursday, she washed her hair and, at 6.27 a.m., opened the window of her tall tower so that she could let her hair down to dry and for a handy prince to use as a ladder. Rapunzel retched; she coughed, her eyes watered. The air outside was SO yuck! She hastily shut the window and glowered at the grey smog whirling outside her tower. Meanwhile, the prince kept waiting and waiting, but there was nary a sight of hair or hare.

NO WHITE AND HER SEVEN FRIENDS

Once upon a time, a queen was busy sewing clothes when she pricked her finger. Three drops of blood fell on the snow outside—and she wished herself a daughter whom she’d call Snow White. After many years, her child was born. But, by then, there was no snow in their part of Fairyland, so the baby had been called No White.

No White had luxurious black hair just like ebony, skin white as snow and lips red as blood, which were unfortunately hidden behind a mask. Threatened by a Stepma—long story, not important—No White left her home and moved in with seven friends. They used to have real names but ever since they began working at the coal mines, their names had been changed to Carbon, Methane, Nitrous, Oxide, Water, Vapour, and Gas. It was unfortunate, but what to do?

Carbon was no longer happy.

Methane was sneezing even more because of all the pollution.

Dr Nitrous had so many patients at the factory, all down with a weird flu, that he had no time for anything else.

Oxide had curled up and gone to sleep.

Water was constantly roiling and boiling, just like the rising sea levels, and he was even grumpier than usual. Who knew that was even possible?

Only Vapour and Gas weren’t anxious. They went around singing la-la-la. When the smog overwhelmed their lungs, they stopped and pretended like they couldn’t be bothered to sing. ‘Smog, what smog?’ they gasped. ‘Nothing is wrong,’ Gas wheezed.

‘It’s all fine,’ Vapour said with red, watery eyes.

But every smoggy cloud has a silver lining. No White discovered that she did not need rescuing from her Stepma. In fact, nature had solved her problem. She was most amused as Stepma’s plans to poison her with apples bore no fruit. Fairyland was witnessing an apple scarcity because the rains had come too early and damaged most of the harvest. Then a blight had finished off the rest. The last anyone had heard of Stepma was that she was trying to inject poison into a jamun, but the fruit kept staining her hands purple. Even Mirror, Mirror on the Wall was horrified at her purple fingers. No White laughed and laughed a tinkly laugh, which at any other time would have attracted birds and butterflies. Now there were none for her to play with.

Meanwhile, the poor prince kept waiting for No White to bite into a fruit, but there was no sight of apple or jamun.

THE NOT-SLEEPING BEAUTY

Once upon a time there was a princess.

A very beautiful princess.

A very beautiful princess, beloved of her parents, and her subjects, and objects.

But alas, she was cursed. Cursed to fall into an almost-death-like sleep. Waiting for a handsome prince, who would never arrive because...

The curse would not take! The princess in question—Sleeping Beauty (SB)—wouldn’t sleep. Which left her simply as Beauty—and, really, that was a name that simply would not do.

So far, the insomniac princess had tried many things to sleep—a cup of haldi doodh (sprinkled with a kiss of nutmeg), a long hot bath, a short cold bath, lavender candles, lavender cream, lavender tea, and even gross banana tea. All it had done was make SB full of calcium and feel very clean.

The reason SB could not sleep, despite cursed spindles, was that she was feeling quite anxious. Every time SB spun her cursed spindle, and pricked herself, she would fall down dramatically on the floor and wait. And wait.

And wait.

And nothing—still no sleep.

On the hard floor of the Sleeper and the Spindle Room, she would think and think, and worry and worry, and cry and wail, all of which made her anxiety even worse.

It had become so bad that the King and Queen were getting quite anxious too. If she didn’t sleep, then when would the handsome prince come and kiss SB and wake her up? The poor prince also wanted to know; he kept waiting, but there was no sign of a dream or a snore.

This was a very serious issue. Her parents consulted the old fairy—the good-turned-evil-turned-good-again one—who had cursed SB’s family after they ignored her social media post wishing them happiness on having a baby girl. But curses, once given, could not be returned.

Everyone kept telling her everything was fine. SB knew that things weren’t all ‘fine’. She was filled with dread—something her therapist had diagnosed as climate anxiety. Instead of dream clouds, a permanent black cloud hovered over her.

Excerpted from When Fairyland Lost Its Magic with permission of HarperCollins Children’s Books India

This was first published in the 16-31 January, 2024 print edition of Down To Earth