In 1998 when Mahashweta Devi’s “Our Non-Veg Cow and other stories” quietly entered bookshops, the reactions were not so quiet. The writer who was the personification of “pen is mightier than the sword” had written stories for children, and her own true blue Bengali world also found it excitingly astonishing. The collection -- published by Seagull and translated by Paramita Banerjee – had a selection of ten stories that the great writer had written over 25 years (the first in 1976), all of them first published in the children’s magazine, Sandesh . Ever since the book came out, the delight has only grown with every reading. Each time I have had the desire to read these most whimsical set of stories, I have found a child to read it to. We have rolled in laughter, and we have hid tears. Each time the newness of experience, the unsullied world and its charming characters with no notion of reality has compelled me to go back to it: along with a co-traveller. I have looked if I would, accidentally, bump into the anti-establishment cow Nyadosh or Baba or Phalgu -- straight out of those immortal stories.
But wasn’t this meant for children? I have often asked. Similar questions have arisen when I experience great happiness reading Tolstoy’s Fables for Children , Isaac Balshevis Singer’s Stories for Children , Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol , Shivaram Karanth’s writings for children, Boluvar Muhammad Kunhi’s Santammanna and Tattu Chappale Putta Magu … this list will turn out to be endless. Why did these great writers want to write for children? The remarkable Sukumar Ray and Satyajit Ray ran the children’s magazine Sandesh started by Upendra Kishore Roychoudhury in 1913, and it continues to exist. Tolstoy, in 1849, established a school for peasant children at his estate Yasnaya Polyana and wrote stories of kings, queens, hermits and farmers, eternally proposing the vision of a humane and just society. Can I forget the great Dinakara Desai, Panje Mangesh Rao and their commitment to children?
In his Nobel prize speech, Singer listed ten reasons for writing for children, among which were -- children don’t read to find their identity, and they still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff. Tolstoy said the “simplicity and innocence” of children inspired him to write about his childhood and also start a school that was modelled on the principle of “Come when you like, leave when you like”. Charles Dickens, in industrialised England, walked the slums meeting children and telling them stories. T.S. Eliot wrote a series of letters to his godchildren, Rabindranth Tagore, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce... each one of these great writers wrote for children.
Mahashweta Devi who was radical and cutting in her stories, created a world that was full of innocent and fun loving people in her writings for children. There are no moral lessons, no preaching, but Mahashweta Devi celebrates the innocence and charm of these unbelievable characters -- for instance, Baba who walks to the railway station in a vest chatting with a friend and even gets on to the train and lands in his sister’s house! and the cheetah of Rudraprayag who narrates the truth behind Jim Corbett’s heroic killing. In her introduction to the book, Nabaneeta Dev Sen rightly says: “A new face of Mahashweta Devi is revealed here, so far unseen by adults.”
But the question still persists: why did all these legendary writers want to write for children? Surely, it was not just to try their hands at yet another genre. Each of these writers believed that many of the burning questions of human civilization and society will find answers only when you care for your children, when you unlearn with them, and when you express solidarity in their strength of character. They knew that it was imperative to create and set afloat in a world of beautiful imagination, where clouds could become cotton for your mattresses. Mahashweta Devi once said: “One should write with great deal of love and respect for children.” She firmly believed that only if you include a child in your idea of this world, can things change for the better. The only way to counter globalisation, she added, “just a plot of land in some central place, keep it covered in grass, let there be a single tree, even a wild tree. Let your son's tricycle lie there. Let some poor child come and play, let a bird come and use the tree. Small things. Small dreams. After all, you have your own small dreams, don't you?”
Bhavabhuti, the Sanskrit scholar, said that the enlightened one is he who can be tougher than diamond, and softer than a petal. As an ardent admirer of Mahashweta Devi’s writings, I see Bhavabhuti’s words resonating in her persona. She was angry with the discriminations of this world, but she never forgot that children had to be showered with love and beauty.
