What scares you the most?
Be it snakes, crocodiles, cockroaches, bullies in a playground, alien invasions or 2012, a secret friend is an unbeatable ally against all things gruesome and scary.
Why? Because a secret friend can be anything you want it to be. It can have the power to control; to zap; to transform and all in all vanquish anything that would make a normal
person’s knees knock together.
Many brave,
adventurous souls out there will argue that
nothing scares them.
Prashani Rambukwella disagrees. As a group of lucky kids got the chance to listen with fascination to the creator of Mythil’s whimsical world of
Yakkas and Bairavayas, they realized that unlike day to day horrors, Yakkas can pose a formidable threat.
“So what would you do if you came face to face with a Yakka?”
asks Prashani. “Crush him!”
“Give him iron!”
“Shoot him down!”
Amidst the valiant cries of his friends, one quiet kid in a
corner makes a
suggestion. “Make friends with him,” he says; and incredibly, that is the answer.
And this is exactly what young Mythil did when he met Asiri, the young yakka in the woods.
Disbelieving parents no longer seemed to be a
problem with Asiri by his side as they
battled Bhishani and her crew of evil Yakkas.
At the Galle Literary Festival, children of Mythil’s age brought their secret friends out in the open to confront
everything that scared them.
Put roughly twenty five all-powerful secret friends together, and you have a powerful force, and this is exactly what these children did while taking many leaves out of Mythil’s book.
Fears were scoffed at while the army of secret friends vied for the
important role of defeating the enemy, and the army of secret friends won.
Meanwhile, how did Mythil and Asiri succeed in defeating the fearsome Yakkas and avoiding the peril of the scary portal? Read the book and find out. |
E-mail
