In a little village by the sea,
lived a tall person called Brachio.
Brachio wasn’t just tall, he was
tremendously,
terrifically,
toweringly tall.
He was twice as tall as the adults and thrice as tall as the children. His arms were so long that the kids asked him to pluck stars from the sky for their birthdays. His legs were so long that he used a boat’s sail cloth to cover them. His house was so tall that the front door was made of coconut tree trunks.
Being so tall had its advantages.
He picked fruits directly from trees.
He high-fived birds.
He saw the sun rise before anyone else.
But being so tall had disadvantages as well.
He never found any shade to protect him from the afternoon sun.
Clouds sometimes tickled his nose and made him sneeze.
When it rained, he got drenched before anyone else.
If a kitten climbed up a tree and couldn’t get back down, they fetched Brachio to pick up the mewling kittne from the tree – and a fruit, if he felt hungry – and return it to the ground. Brachio enjoyed helping the village-folk with their tall troubles.
The village-folk made ample use of Brachio’s height. If they kicked a ball onto the roof of a house, they knocked on Brachio’s tall coconut tree door, and he would simply pick the ball from the roof and return it to them.
Excerpted with permission from Brachio, Venkataraghavan, illustrated by Ananya Broker Parekh, HarperCollins India.
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