The Road to Agra by Aimee Sommerfelt

First published:Veien til Agra, 1959 (English translation, 1961); illustrated

Type of work: Adventure tale, moral tale

Themes: Travel, education, health and illness, and social issues

Time of work: The mid-twentieth century

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: India

Principal Characters:

• Lalu, an impulsive thirteen-year-old boy driven by a desire to learn to read and write
• Maya, his seven-year-old sister, whose eyesight is failing
• Father, their father
• Jhandu, a camel driver

The Story

Thirteen-year-old Lalu is amazed to learn that his friend’s uncle, whom everyone in the Indian village of Katwa has known as a blind beggar, has returned from a hospital in Agra with his sight fully restored. Lalu’s thoughts fly to his sister, seven-year-old Maya, whose vision seems to be deteriorating daily.

Lalu’s family has been trying to keep Maya’s affliction a secret, for she has been promised a place in a nearby school. Such places are hard to come by, and if her eye problems become known, she will likely lose her chance for schooling. Beyond his love for his sister, Lalu has a special reason for wanting her to attend school: He plans to learn from her how to read and write.

Yet how could Maya get to Agra, three hundred miles away? Her parents have pressing responsibilities for planting rice and tending the younger children. Nani, the children’s grandmother, is too old. If Maya’s eyes are to be cured, Lalu himself must take her to Agra.

Lalu commits himself impulsively yet wholeheartedly to this plan and, after initially dismissing the idea as preposterous, his Father begins to soften. The local guru explains that their journey would take place during “a fortunate phase of the moon” and shows Lalu a small box mounted with a looking glass in which the boy sees a mustard field, a snake, a road, and “something big and gray,” perhaps an elephant. This last item, the guru says, is a good omen.

Next, Lalu accompanies Father to the moneylender to borrow what the children will need for food and for return-trip tickets (the guru has said that it will not be advisable for them to return home on foot). Waiting for Father to complete his negotiations, Lalu is horrified to see his dog, Kanga, disappearing into the moneylender’s house. He follows her but soon runs afoul of Akvi, the moneylender’s fat, hot-tempered wife, who gives boy and dog a thorough tongue-lashing before they escape.

Maya and Lalu’s farewells are painful. They must leave even Kanga behind, for Father is sure that they will not be able to afford to feed a dog on the trip. Their unhappiness turns into fear when, in the Allahabad square, they hear a policeman announce over a loudspeaker that two children named Lalu and Maya are sought by the police; he carefully describes them and offers a one-hundred-rupee reward. Suddenly—and inexplicably—they have become fugitives from the law. Their only consolation is that outside Allahabad they are overtaken by a dusty but joyous Kanga.

Besides enduring the fatigue and discomfort of their journey, the children now must devise ways to avoid calling attention to themselves as they travel. For two days, they enjoy the companionship and protection of camel driver Jhandu, who sets Maya atop his camel and shares his food with her and Lalu. He tells them stories, such as one about a man who is rewarded for not taking a pot of money he finds buried. Then, however, Jhandu leaves, and once again the children are alone. They unwisely take refuge in a baoli, an ancient underground hiding place. When threatened by a cobra, they scramble out, leaving behind most of their food and one of their sleeping mats.

A young maharajah, enchanted by Kanga, offers them six rupees for her and promises to give her good care. Lalu is miserable at the thought of surrendering his beloved dog, but the prince is riding a great gray elephant, and the guru had said that a gray elephant would bring them good fortune. He and Maya sadly leave Kanga behind once again.

Kidnapped by a railroad signalman, the children learn that the crime for which they are being sought is the theft of a ring. Lalu and Maya manage to escape and are rejoined by the indomitable Kanga. The remainder of their journey is difficult, but at last they reach Agra, where they are promptly bilked of their money by a con man. They learn, however, that the ring has been found and that they are no longer wanted by the police, but Lalu feels more bitter rage at having been falsely accused than relief.

At the hospital, their way is barred. Help comes unexpectedly, though, in the form of a large gray jeep (the real good-luck omen) carrying health workers from the United Nations International Children’s Educational Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The cheerful, compassionate members of this international team take Lalu and Maya under their wing. An Indian doctor takes the children into her home and finds Maya a place in the hospital. Lalu is given a job to help earn money for their trip home, and the kind doctor enrolls him in a school, where his dream of learning to read and write can come true.

Context

Sommerfelt’s husband, Alf Sommerfelt, was one of the founders of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). His work as a delegate took the couple to India. Upon their return to Oslo, Norway, Aimee Sommerfelt immediately began work on The Road to Agra as an expression of her compassionate interest in the impoverished children of India.

The book was awarded the Norwegian State Prize for Children’s Literature in 1959. After the publication of an English translation in 1961, it garnered several American prizes, including the Child Study Children’s Book Award (1961), the Boys’ Club Junior Book Award (1962), and the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award (1962). Several other Sommerfelt books for children were translated into English, including The White Bungalow (English translation published in 1963; the original Norwegian edition appeared in 1962 as Den hvite bungalow) and My Name Is Pablo (1965; translated from Pablo og de andre, published in Norwegian in 1964). Like The Road to Agra, these books take up Sommerfelt’s two favorite themes of social justice and world community.

Though Sommerfelt’s aims are didactic, her best works succeed in engaging young readers because of their winsome, realistic protagonists and the adventures into which circumstances propel them.