Real stories of real women

‘The Dot That Went For A Walk', a children’s book published by Caterpillar Wing, is an inspiring initiative with short stories from 51 women, who have achieved great heights in various fields- including Rani Laxmi Bai, Tarla Dalal, Ritu Kumar, Deepika Padukone, and Joyita Mondal.

This book is conceptualised by Lakshmi Nambiar, Reema Gupta and Sarada Akkineni. “We are three friends with a passion to inspire children to be original through the stories of 51 pioneering women. We are tired of the gender stereotypes that exist in fairy tales (Damsel in distress) and its time we change the narrative and tell real stories of real women,” says Reema Gupta.

Sarada Akkineni shares, “When we asked our kids and their friends, who their female role
models were, they struggled to come up with any names. When we probedfurther they could only come up with people in Bollywood and sports personalities. Sadly, the boys could not even name a few. We knew that Indian women role models couldn’t be such a finite set.

Through these stories we would like a child to be inspired to dream bigger, think of new possibilities and fight harder against self-doubt.”Lakshmi Nambiar says, “This book is unlike other children’s books and talks about real stories and real women, who have empowered the world with their actions.It is a new way of storytelling, which is a welcome change. The book also has uber creative and apt illustrations by 51 artists and 10 writers from across the country.”

-Askari Jaffer