Everything's Official About This

__

This is the editorial I wrote for the childen’s special issue of TBR.
After 2 years of rewriting, editing, and writing chunks of other people’s editorials, here’s one on which I finally got to sign! Yippie.

***

This dismissive attitude is but a symptom of a much larger malady: the negligence and undervaluation of a genre of literature that is, perhaps, the most liberating of all to create and consume. Though we have had literary giants like Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Ruskin Bond, and RK Narayan write for children, the genre still has not received its due consideration. Children’s writers in India don’t make too much money. The pay cheques are modest. Most have regular fulltime jobs that may or may not have to do with writing. Most are read by small (though growing) audiences and almost never figure in bestseller lists. They hardly win any award or occupy column space in the nation’s widely-read newspapers. A psychologist analyzing these statements would undoubtedly conclude that an Indian children’s writer must either have masochistic tendencies or an unreal optimism that’s bordering on the foolish. For, why would anyone write if not to be read?

A part of me wants to give you a detailed intellectual response to this question. Something that will put me on par with someone who’s written a real (read adult) book. But rather than churn my brain to impress you, I shall tell you the short truth: because it’s fun.

Writing for children is at once a huge responsibility and an invite to the Mad Hatter’s party. It’s an opportunity for you to become a part of a child’s treasured memory. It could also become criteria for how the child develops its reading in the years to come. If you commit the unforgivable sin of boring a child in your story, you might turn him/her away from books for a long, long time. On the other hand, if the pages of your book turn old and frayed with use and love, you could just have hooked the child into a world where travel requires no passport. These are the selfless reasons for writing for children. The selfish and gleeful reason is that it’s a key that opens several delightful doors that years of being a grown-up have shut for you.

Fortunately, now more than ever before, publishing for children in India has become easier. Today, there are more publishing houses committed to the cause of producing quality children’s literature that veers away from the usual didactic and preachy fodder that has formed the staple for too many years. Though the sales figures of these houses pale in comparison to the millions of conventional children’s mythological titles sold by the big players in this field, they nevertheless are developing a loyal audience that comes back to them for more. There is greater awareness (though not as much as one would desire) amongst parents and teachers about stereotyping, violence, politically incorrect depictions and insensitive treatment in children’s literature. Parents are not so nonchalant about narrating Cinderella to their child as they used to be in previous generations. Today, Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters are likely to be painted with a softer brush. The Black Vs White kind of morality is slowly giving way to a more intelligent and less judgmental representation.

It is thus an exciting and advantageous time for an Indian children’s writer to experiment with style, depiction, and narration. The acknowledgment of this is coming about slowly: for the first time this year, the Sahitya Akademi has instituted an award for children’s literature: the Bal Sahitya Puraskar. The Vodafone Crossword Book Awards, considered to be corporate India’s biggest book award, also instituted an award for the children’s category this year. Though Indian children’s books have received international recognition even before this, it is heartening to be cheered and applauded by the home audience at last. One hopes that in the years to come, the award categories will also take into consideration the age group for which the books are being produced within the genre itself to provide a more equal platform. Is a picture book for a 3-year-old any less weighty than an adventure novel for a 10-year old? These nuances need to be given due consideration and sub-categories need to be framed. Though the primary aim of a writer in writing a story is not to win an award, these developments are critical in elevating this much neglected genre to respectability.

A writer today also has the added advantage of having multiple media to experiment in. One needn’t be restricted to the print medium alone: there are audio books, e-books, i-books, each that’s new and exciting. Technology has widened and diversified the audience for a story- so even if a writer is unable to persuade conventional print editorial boards to publish, s/he can always try to breach other media that may be more receptive to innovation. These also nullify the problem of having to persuade bookshops to allot a reasonable space for the genre. Some feel that such ‘new-fangled’ media might turn children away from ‘good old books’, but these should be seen as opportunities that co-exist rather than threaten each other. Closing oneself to the future, however unfamiliar or unconvincing it may seem, is not a sustainable solution. Instead, a children’s writer must be willing to be educated in these developments and use them to advantage. It is thus a friendly climate for a children’s writer to flourish.

A child is a very busy person. The world is trying its best to teach it everything that it has on offer. If having to go to school every other day is not bad enough, a child today also needs to have about five talents apiece to be considered ‘smart’. In such a scenario, it becomes very difficult for a book, in whatever format it might be in, to compete with the limited time that the child has in its hands. Of course, Indian children have been reading Enid Blyton, JK Rowling, Roald Dahl, Lemony Snicket and many more recent writers ardently. And so they should. But it is equally important that they get to read contemporary fiction set in India too. The disconnect between their real world experiences and the experiences they read about in books set in unfamiliar places is not bad- but it leads to a situation where they are unable to articulate their own experiences because they haven’t found the language for it. This is a gap that needs to be filled- by writers, publishers, and by the buyer market. And hopefully, someday, the Indian children’s writer can stay a frog and still wear a crown.