Literature and Children in India

Have you seen the eyes of those little angels?  They keep on looking innocently at the books in the shelves in a book-store and then insist on buying books to fit their imagination. A book is simply a means for them to reach their landscapes of imagination. It is their creativity in the budding stage. Such creativity is struggling to get transformed into blossoms of expression.

They are children in India. Fancies of imagination given in the books and cartoons have caught their attention so much that they feel desperate in their search for more.

Lord Krishna, killing the monsters in his pranks during his childhood and the fights in Lanka between Hanuman and demons still give fodder to tickle the imagination of children. While growing up, they come across “Alice in the wonderland” and cartoons like Phantom, Denise the menace and the most outstanding among those immortal Tom and Jerry.

But as children their teenage, they love to read more from the collection of Western authors, which includes the teen sorcerer Harry Potter and the “Cult” twilight series by Stephanie Mayer, based on a story of love affair of a young girl with a vampire.

Teenagers have craze for tales of vampires and ghosts, which keep them thrilled. They like dark characters and adventures. Says Madhulika Liddle, author of “The English cameo”, which is a detective novel set in Mughal India- “Children love fantasy stories by J.K Rowling, Rick Riordan, P.Kerr etc, which are very popular”.

Some Indian writers are trying their hands at children’s literature. Geeti Chandra’s “Summoning of the fang” is an instance. Author Subhdra Sengupta shares the view that books about the children must address their issues. Teenagers do have interest in the books of Ruskin Bond, which are not necessarily based on children’s’ literature.

In terms of creative literature for kids and teenagers, Indian authors in English still have a long way to go in comparison to their counter-parts of west. But in India, the regional languages do have great stuff for the children. Particularly in Bengali, Tamil, Marathi and Malayalam languages, there are a number of worthy books for children’s reading.

Richness in characterization, writing styles and tones are the vital ingredients in literature for children. Books from west in India enjoy best promotion, whereas Indian authors lag behind in this aspect. But there is surge in the demand for fantasy, magic, super-natural story-based books in India.

Is there an interest among the children to know about God?

Yes there is! Children are more logical in their approach to spirituality. They refuse to accept the dogmas in the religion. The new generations of children are believers of “karma” and refuse to go by the superficial theories propagated by the pseudo-religious groups.

Teenagers are true believers of the essence of “Bhagabat Gita”, “Koran” and “Bible” as well. By heart a child disbelieves the distinctions amongst people of different castes, creeds and religions. Unless it is specifically inoculated, intolerance is not part of fancy in the nature of the children. Literature is the common passion, if their hearts mate.

In modern India, where we find a surge in English based education, there is an equal amount of  interest in the children to read about the spiritual preceptors, who once lived in India with the secular and eternal wisdom towards benevolence of mankind.

We find teenagers searching for hagiography and narratives of true spirituality.

Srikant Mohanty,

Email;srikant_mh@rediffmail.com