Flamingoes are one of those rare species that have the power to capture public imagination. You don’t need to be a birdwatcher to be fascinated and enchanted by these wonderfully pink and elegant birds with impossibly long necks and ridiculously odd beaks, that feed, play, dance in large flocks. A few lucky cities in India, including the booming metropolis of Mumbai, boast of attracting flamingo populations in tens of thousands during the migratory season. The places where they choose to settle down become a sea of pink, and conservation and outreach organisations like the Bombay Natural History Society organise public viewings of this spectacle of nature. The collective noun for these birds is a very apt one – flamboyance. 

A new book for young readers, Go Go Flamingo by author-filmmaker Devashish Makhija and illustrator Priya Kuriyan, tracks the adventures of a flamboyance of flamingoes as they arrive looking for a suitable habitat. From the opening page, it is clear that the city of Mumbai with its iconic skyline of skyscrapers is the location they are headed to. 

The book, written completely in verse, starts with a reference to plankton that will make the flamingoes develop their characteristic deep pink colour. However, they are in for a surprise and a rather rude shock, as their feeding grounds have turned into dumping  grounds for all manner of human-generated trash – from medical waste and plastic bags to shoes, tyres and more. The book sarcastically conveys this dystopia by depicting the flamingoes draped in unspooled tape, covered in plastic bags, discarded shoes, wires, pots and pans. The confused flamingoes dance amidst the detritus and eventually succumb to their doom.

The illustrations by the ever-talented Priya Kuriyan are ingenious and delightful, even if the situation that the flamingoes find themselves in is not. Little touches make you chuckle while making you think – like the fancy speaker tags from ​‘Yak Yak Litfest’ that have probably joined a mound of garbage in the sea somewhere. 

However, the theme of the book and its intended age-group left me perplexed and disappointed. A book in verse for ages 6+ (as proclaimed by the publishers) with fun words like hullaballoo, and quacking and clacking sounds, seems a perfect choice for a read aloud. The question, of course, is whether it is appropriate for a 6‑year-old to be subjected to a satire about the state of the planet and left with a sinking feeling that the quirky and beautiful protagonists they’ve been reading about are headed to their demise.

It is true, of course, that humans have inflicted violence upon the natural world, and unleashed suffering upon countless beings that we share the earth with. There is no doubt that wetlands across India are one of the most at-risk habitats – a fact borne out by recent reports like ​‘The State of India’s Birds’ – and that waste disposal is woefully inadequate and poorly managed in our country. The coming generations have to unfortunately deal with these problems that they have had no role in creating. But they are more likely to become environmentally conscious and responsible adults if they are made to fall in love with the natural world at a young age, rather than be made aware of the problems that they did not create and that they have no agency in helping to solve. With such an enigmatic and endearing species at the centre of its storyline, Go Go Flamingo seems like a missed opportunity to do just that and would have been more appropriate if it was targeted at a middle-grade audience rather than young children. 

About the reviewer:

Garima Bhatia is a birdwatcher and nature educator who leads Early Bird, a non-profit initiative to introduce children to nature through birds. She is also the course director of Early Bird’s free online course titled The Wonder of Birds, available in three languages.