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Narratives encompass a whole range of genres – fable, myth, songs, poems, dance, drama, illustrations, comics,
television and the world wide web. I would like to focus on
narratives in children’s books for our discussion today.
Children’s literature is part of a wider literature, just as children are an
intrinsic part of the whole population. The history of Indian literature is
5,000 years old, we are told, and it is a history shaped by strong
democratic, oral traditions which is reflected in our epics, in ancient
Tamil Sangam literature, in Jain and Buddhist literature, in the
anti-colonial, social reformist literature of the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries and in other progressive literature.
All of them have been
responsive to political and cultural change at every point in our history,
and have allowed for explorations of form and style, throwing up new shoots
at every stage, both in the regional languages and in English.
However,
the
history of children’s literature shows none of this vibrancy or
responsiveness to the cultural milieu; in fact, it is not even seen as
existing in a continuum with Indian literature, instead it is relegated to
an isolated corner.
Children’s literature, particularly in the western world, seems to have some
puritanical beginnings. Literature was seen as a means to teach children
moral lessons, so that they were transformed into good and ideal
children. Children were seen as belonging outside the adult world and were
brought up protected from its harsh realities.
In contrast, Indian children,
like children from other oral cultures, grew up in joint families, very much
part of the adult world with all its complexities. Stories were tools to
help children deal with the adult world. The very purpose of moral tales was
to assist in the eventual production of an adult and not a perfect child.
To quote the wonderfully inspirational poet, translator and folklorist AK
Ramanujan, “Even in the most urbane and westernised Indian households there
exists, behind the prim exterior, another India. It lives in tales of
passion and trouble told to children by their grandmothers and servants as
the dusk descends.” Thus, to tell children tales of passion and trouble was
seen as the most natural thing to do.
The world of Indian folklore, like
most oral storytelling cultures, is fascinating and complex. There are no
taboos and stories were ways of expressing feelings and realities that
cannot usually be spoken about. Suppressed desires and feelings like love,
betrayal, jealousy, sexuality, cruelty, etc are all freely expressed through
stories. To quote Ramanujan again, “As these tales are usually told in the
context of family, they are part of the child’s psychological education in
facing forbidden feelings and finding narratives that will contain if not
resolve them, for the tellers as well as their young listeners.”
Children’s literature in India, like the rest of our literature, had its
beginnings in our oral traditions – but while children’s literature in other
countries progressed from being didactic and straitjacketed to becoming
extraordinarily creative, in India the reverse seems to have happened. What
began as richly imaginative and multilayered narratives for children have
deteriorated into stories that neither captivate nor inspire. While we can
reason that our colonial past has created a decontextualised education
system that is largely responsible for this state of affairs, how do we
explain in today’s context the complete lack of awareness among parents,
teachers and policy makers?
What we are discussing are the books that fill the shelves in most bookshops
because they are the top-selling ones. They are cheap, some are not even
that, and they are usually retellings of our fables, mythological stories
and folk tales. These labels seem enough to make the books sell. “Keep the
child supplied with these, and the child’s education in Indian culture and
tradition is taken care of,” is the attitude of parents and teachers. That
they are badly written and badly illustrated never matters.
I would like to read you some gems collected from a range of published
titles for children.
In a retelling of the Ramayana for children: Shri Rama is on his way to
Sita’s swayamvara with Sage Vishwamitra and brother Lakshman:
On the way they saw a beautiful deserted hermitage where Sage Gautama used
to live with his wife Ahilya in peace and in Holy meditation. One day Indra
disguised as Gautama entered the hut of the Sage in his absence, to have
sexual union with the beautiful Ahilya who was vain of her beauty.
In another part of the same book:
All the queens were glad at heart since they became pregnant. They were all
very happy. From the time Lord Vishnu found his way into the womb, joy and
prosperity reigned. Time rolled on happily till the moment arrived for the
Lord to be revealed. A cool, soft breeze was blowing, the Gods were feeling
exhilarated and the saints were bubbling with enthusiasm.
The last paragraph in a chapter gorily titled Manthara Kicked Hard by
Shatrughan goes:
The moment Shatrughan saw the wicked hearted Manthara clad in her best, he
kicked her so hard that her hunch and head were broke.
In another book, the gods are discussing Harishchandra, doubting if he
really always spoke the truth:
The talk reached the pinnacle when Vasishtha vouchsafed the quality of
speaking truth always of Harishchandra who had ennobled himself among Gods
and even leading an austere life and that his fame has pervaded the whole
globe.
Did that make any sense? One sentence, no punctuations!
In one version of the story of Krishna and Sudama:
Years past, Krishna and Sudama never met. Krishna was now the king of the
country. He had had various adventures, and had fought many battles, he had
settled many disputes between kings and between various peoples.
That is the whole of the Mahabharata!
An Akbar-Birbal classic, teaching that all mothers think their own children
are the most beautiful, has a picture of a dark, thick-lipped, unkempt baby
to show how poor and ugly ‘lower caste’ babies actually look.
Over the years, Amar Chitra Katha has become synonymous with Indian culture,
history, mythology, and religion – at least to a vast majority, and there
lies the danger. If anyone were to look at them critically, the huge
problems with the narratives in these comics would become obvious. The text
comprises banal writing, poor and often wrong use of language, unedited use
of dated and inappropriate vocabulary and ideas, plainly chauvinist and
insensitive dialogue, blandly rendered narrative, decontextualised
perspective. Why then is the series so popular with children?
One powerful incentive is the comic format, which is visually appealing to
the reader. Children tune into comics very quickly and become active
readers. Series like ACK or Tinkle (a better series than ACK, I think) and
many similar ones that have followed are extremely market-friendly. They are
cheap, packaged uniformly, and the comic series format ensures a devoted
readership. Amar Chitra Katha’s USP is, of course, the teaching of Indian
culture in neat packages. To the Indian parent or teacher, a comic that does
that is beyond reproach. Many teachers and parents who are aware of the poor
quality still buy these comics because there are no other comics that serve
this all-important purpose.
I am not dismissing the comic genre or the series reader.
When authors,
illustrators and publishers create books about myths, legends and folk
stories with a narrow understanding of the power of those narratives, we get
moral lessons or meaningless glorifications of a past with no relevance to
the present. Myth and legend appeal to children because they are so rich in
metaphor and imagery. Their retelling should open up to children whole new
possibilities of using the language, both in terms of ideas and words.
To my mind the biggest problem with the ACK series are the pictures. By
using the comic format, much of the narrative is conveyed through the
visuals. The world that emerges through these pictures is a world of tall,
strapping gods, kings and princes, and coy, curvaceous, half-clad goddesses,
queens and princesses. That they are fair and beautiful naturally follow.
The baddies are by contrast short, stocky, dark-skinned and thick-lipped.
The inferences are clear: fair is beautiful and good; dark is ugly and bad.
The caste and gender biases in these books are obvious.
A narrative that is retold is as much a cultural experience as the original
story, but the kind of retelling our writers indulge in is often vacuous and
banal, adapted as it is from the western style of oversimplification of
narrative, while eliminating the felicity of language used by very many
western writers. But despite the limitations dictated by the standardisation
of format, authors can rise to these challenges with tales that are
masterpieces of economy, invention and even poetry.
As I mentioned earlier, we have unquestioningly adopted this dumbing down of
style, which we find particularly in American books. Significantly, in the
west, there is a critical backlash against such books from teachers, writers
and academicians. One of them, educationist Julia Eccleshare, deplores the
style of writing that “…reads as if a series of shots is being fired from a
gun. Short sentences are easier to read, once hooked you might go on,
especially if the children have short silly names and do short silly
things”.
Here is an example of what she is talking about from an American book, Jenny
is My Big Sister:
Jenny says I am too little to ride my bike with her.
Jenny says I am too little to skate with her.
Jenny says I am too little to play with her friends.
Jenny says, “Get lost, Becka!”
Someday I will not be too little.
Someday Jenny will want to play with me but I will not play with her.
I will say, “Get lost, Jenny!”
Jenny will be sad.
I will say, “Don’t cry, Jenny.”
Jenny and I will play together.
See how much fun we have together.
Here is an Indian example of such writing:
Once upon a time there was a man called Day, he had a beautiful wife called
Night, they had a bright little daughter called Moon and a brilliant son
called Sun. They all lived happily. One day the children went out for a long
walk. They saw beautiful flowers and butterflies, chirpy birds and happy
animals. They walked and walked. Suddenly they found themselves in the
middle of a huge forest. They had lost their way…
Why, when we know that our children can and do engage with the complexities
of our oral narratives, do we offer them trivialised texts in our books for
them? Fundamental questions that any debate on reading must address are,
“What kind of books?” “What kind of reading?” “What kind of readers?”
I would now like to read from a well-loved and extremely popular book
published by Tulika, Ekki Dokki. The author, Sandhya Rao, retells a story
capturing the spirit of the original that she heard her grandmother tell
again and again. Simple, never simplistic, using the device of the
storyteller by slipping in a couple of asides, sprinkling the story with a
couple of Marathi words – offering multi-lingual text to the reader, which
actually enriches the language in which the story is written – it is not
difficult to see why young readers go back to the book again and again:
Ekkesvali and Donkesvali lived in a little house with their mother and
father. Ekkesvali had one hair on her head, she was called Ekki; and
Donkesvali had two hairs, she was very proud, she was called Dokki. Their
mother thought there was no one quite as lovely as Dokki. Their father was
very busy; he had no time to think. Dokki was always bullying Ekki. One day
Ekki ran away. Into the jungle she ran, and the jungle got deeper and very
quiet. Suddenly she heard a voice, “Water! Somebody give me water.” Ekki
stopped in her tracks and turned around. There was nobody there. Then she
spotted a mangy bush all withered and brown, its leaves rustling. Cupping
her hands together, Ekki collected water from a small stream nearby and
sprinkled it on the bush, once, twice, several times. “Thank you,” the mangy
bush said. Ekki walked on. Suddenly in the silence she heard another voice,
“Hungry, I am hungry, please feed me,” the voice said.
And the story goes on in this manner.
A K Ramunajan makes a simple point: “Many south Indian stories were mealtime
rather than bedtime stories. They were associated with relaxed, loving
figures, with sleep and food. The tales were formative influences and
hypnotic. We were trying hard to keep our eyes open by the time we came to
the end of the story and the meal, which were aimed to coincide.” This is an
experience many of us as listeners and tellers share. I think I was at my
inventive best when I managed to make the vegetables or the last mouthfuls
into my son’s mouth, so engrossed would he be in my story.
When retelling these stories, we often change qualities intrinsic to them –
the sense of fantasy, of improbability, of fun, even of the wicked and
wickedly funny. I am not questioning the writer’s freedom to adapt and
change, but this has to be done with an understanding of the original. When
writers let the original guide and inspire them, as in Ekki Dokki, they
truly carry forward the ancient story.
India, unlike the western nation states, and like Africa or Latin America,
is multicultural and multilingual. Its diversity is reflected in 1,652
mother tongues (according to the 1961 census) belonging to four language
families and written in 10 major scripts and a host of minor ones; 4,600
castes and communities; 4000 faiths and beliefs. Western monolingualism
regards one language as the norm and many languages as absurd; the
multilingual attitude is the reverse of this – many languages are the norm
and one language is absurd. Paradoxically, we have an education system that compartmentalises language learning in terms of “first”, “second”, “third”
and “fourth” languages. Books for children are seen as being primarily for
improving reading and writing skills. They are therefore in the dominant
language, usually English, and offer dull, featureless, homogenised text.
Books can bring us closest to a multicultural experience, through
translations across our many languages. “Multicultural” is the buzz word in
children’s publishing now. The perception of multiculturalism itself is very
cultural. This has been our experience, for instance if you show publishers
an Indian book which has stylised illustrations, they might complain and say
that the book does not have enough “kings” and “queens”. So they have
already decided what an Indian book for children should be like; it should
have miniature-style paintings, flowing skirts and long hair. Only then is
it an Indian book. If it is different from their conception of an Indian
book, then it is not accepted. Then what is multiculturalism about?
Children’s literature in the regional languages reveals phases of vibrancy
that are missing in English language publishing. For one, the former has a
much longer history; like with all literatures in the regional language,
there is an integrity and rootedness in the text that is natural. Writer C S
Lewis says, “Writing a children’s story is the best art form for something
that you have to say.” Many well known writers explored this art form in our
Indian languages – Amir Khusrau, Mirza Ghalib, Mohammed Iqbal, Dr Zakir
Husain, Premchand in Hindi; Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Sukumar Ray,
Mahasweta Devi. Another striking feature is that poetry, drama, travelogue,
nonfiction were all explored. It is only through translations that we can
reach this rich and diverse genre to all children. Sharing stories across
cultures and languages breaks down barriers. Today, more than ever before,
the time is right; a new generation is emerging, a generation that is
growing up digital, creating a culture of interaction.
What happens to narratives in translation? Translation is a complex creative
process, an area where there is a lot of academic discussion. When it comes
to translating books for children, the task is all the more complex as we
are also dealing with a young reader’s developing literacy. The challenge
for translators and editors of children’s books is that first you have to
throw off the baggage that comes with writing for children. Unless we do
this and free both language and thought, how can we capture the music of the
Indian languages that are enriched by rhymes, rhythms, alliteration and
metaphor, particularly in writing for children? Isn’t it this delight that
we seek to convey to the English-knowing readers? To go back to the master, Ramanujan: “Translation must not only represent but re-present the
original.” To all of us who have been involved in translating for children,
this makes immense sense, for there are times we feel as though we have only
managed to “re-present” something and not quite represent it closely.
We draw comfort from this parable that Ramanujan quotes:
“A Chinese emperor ordered a tunnel to be bored through a great mountain.
The engineer decided that the best and quickest way to do it was to begin
work on both sides of the mountain, after precise measurements. If the
measurements were precise enough then the two tunnels would meet in the
centre, making a single bar. “But what if they don’t meet?” asked the
Emperor. The councillors in their wisdom answered, “If they don’t meet, we
will have two tunnels instead of one. So too, if the representation in
another language is not close enough, but still succeeds in carrying the
poem in some sense, we will have two poems instead of one.”
This is echoed in Sukanta Chaudhuri’s translations of Sukumar Ray’s Nonsense
Poems.
“Why are they always white children?” asked a five-year-old black girl who
was looking at a picture book at the Manhattan nursery school in New York.
If you only cared to listen, there are many children’s voices in India that
ask similar questions. How many of these children find themselves in the
books they read? Some books that do make self-conscious attempts end up
reflecting the distorted notions of urban middle class people about rural
life.
Textbook writers, who are unfortunately the only writers who write for
the readership outside the urban sections, are seriously hampered by their
limited view of the power of narrative for children. Why primary education has performed so poorly is a question that is debated
all the time among educators and policy makers. As our involvement with
children’s books and their reading grows, we are increasingly convinced that
the quality of the reading that the majority of children experience is
directly related to poor literacy levels, to a large extent.
If we can give
all children stories in which they can find themselves, stories in which
cultural settings are familiar and relevant, children will find reading
interesting and meaningful. There is then a chance of retaining these
children long enough to make them literate. The high dropout rate is the
usual explanation for poor literacy levels. Books, as much as anything else
for children in this country, have to take in the reality of all children’s
lives in the present as well as in the past, crossing barriers of class,
caste, religion and language; only then can we dare to hope that our future
generations will build a borderless world.
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