KovyNintee- Diya Gets Battle-Ready
Diya Gets Battle-ready’ story by Anjali Anil and illustration by Arjun looks at the coronavirus pandemic from a child’s perspective
All there is to hear nowadays is talk and worry about something the adults call ‘KovyNintee’. Sounds funny. I just can’t seem to hold it in whenever I hear the name.
Little Diya is perplexed about ‘KovyNintee’, rather COVID-19. She wonders why she has to stay at home during the summer vacation, why her parents are not going to work and why her mother asks her to wash her hands so often. That’s when her mother tells a story — about the ‘gangs of naughty monsters running around and scaring people’ and how she can fight them by staying indoors and protecting herself using ‘the potion called sanitiser’ and a mask.
COVID-19 lockdown has inspired many artistes to unleash their creativity and among them is Anjali Anil (an ex-student of MES Indian School, Qatar). Anjali, final year of Architecture at Holy Crescent College of Architecture, Kerala India, and her college senior Arjun Shankar, look at the pandemic from a child’s perspective, with Anjali writing the story and Arjun doing the illustrations. They created ‘KovyNintee — Diya Gets Battle-ready’, a children’s story on Instagram.
Running into 10 sheets, including the cover page, they visualised the virus as a monster to make it easier for children to understand the concept. “Most of them wouldn’t know what a virus is whereas they are familiar with monsters through stories and films. The drawings were made colourful keeping the children in mind,”
Anjali, adds that although the story targets the little ones, the message is for everyone out there. “We plan to work on another socially-relevant topic,” Anjali adds.