Journey to the City of Six Gates

Two children, Prince Satya and Princess Mati journey to the city of six gates to rescue their parents who have been captured by one of their arch-enemies.
The journey is long and arduous, in which shorn of the trappings of palace life, the children travel on foot, eat grass seed rotis and fruits and sleep under the canopy of the trees with only a loyal servant to accompany them.

The story could have been another me-too kind of adventure but somehow it emerges as an unusual fantasy. In the jungle they meet the enigmatic Roti Baba who imparts to each of them a special skill that changes their perception and attitude towards the trees. They learn not only to respect them but also to communicate with them.

Mati the Green, as she gets to be called, discovers that, “They feel thirst! They feel cold and heat! They feel the wind! ...they are as alive as we are!”
She understands that if one respects the trees, the steady ones, they go all out to share their ageless wisdom, to lend a helping hand and even warn them of dangers along their way. She also realises that she had been chosen to play a very special role; that of The Keeper of the forests.

Whereas, Satya learns to climb the trees effortlessly, as one with the trees, as in a graceful dance. He saw no climber. he saw nothing climbed. he saw two dancers dancing. and he cried: Dance! Dance!

From a review by Shamim Padamsee.

Graeme MacQueen was born and raised in Canada. He received his PhD through the Centre for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University as an expert in Indian religion and narrative. He then joined the faculty of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. He found soon himself holding the attention of large classes of Canadian university students by telling them stories from ancient India.

In the mid-1990s, when Griffin Ondaatje decided to bring out a book of stories from ancient India re-told by contemporary authors, he asked MacQueen to contribute. Working alongside some of Canada’s top writers, MacQueen contributed four stories to The Monkey King & Other Stories, which was published in 1995 by HarperCollins. The next year HarperCollins India brought out a separate edition of the book.

MacQueen was then asked by an Indian publisher to write an original book-length story for young Indian readers. The result was Journey to the City of Six Gates, published in 2006 by Tulika Publishers, based in Chennai. As that is now out of print, we now offer this new publication.