About idlis, dosas, commoners and kings

History as it is taught in Indian schools borders on the boring, and most people turn to the sciences at the end of their schooling in a desperate attempt to get rid of the subject. History, though, can be the most interesting of subjects if it is approached as a narrative of events, a story with all the elements of wonder and drama that it undoubtedly holds. Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to activate our brains, just like a smell or music that are both powerful triggers for memory. Sometimes even reminding one of things long gone, that we may have not been conscious of remembering.

To focus on this, Saffrontree held a fest of fiction and non-fiction based on Indian History in the first week of Decenber. It has a wonderful bunch of books that deal with Indian history in a fun way. Do go to the posts and read all about these books.

Here are my contributions. Both of these are books A has thoroughly enjoyed. They have been extensively used for school projects this year, she has been recommending them to her friends AND her history teacher, and we've already gifted many copies of the first to a few close friends.

pic courtesy flipkart

Let’s Go Time Travelling: Life in India through the ages
Written by Subhadra Sen Gupta
Published by Penguin Books India
Age 9-12 years

In her interview in The Hindu at the publishing of her book Let’s Go Time Travelling Subhadra Sen Gupta says, "My target readers are the kids in classes 6 to 8, who begin studying Indian history. The book aims at making history less intimidating for them and also talk about things that kids are curious about. The stuff that textbooks leave out, like food and clothes, transport and school."

Very true. History textbooks have a way of putting the child off the subject, unless there is an exceptional teacher in the offing. This book fills in exactly that void. For my daughter in the 6th grade, this was THE book to read, much in the mould of the irreverent Horrible Histories series.

A period of close to 5000 years has been divided into 4 parts- Early India from 2600 - 500 BCE, Ancient India from 300 BCE – 1100 CE, Medieval India from 1200 – 1850 CE and British India from 1800 – 1940 CE. I give the dates here not to overwhelm the reader of this review with dates: something that always put me off from an academic study of history, but to demonstrate the scope of this slim and wonderfully crafted book.

Subhadra Sen Gupta ( interviewed here on Saffrontree) deconstructs the weight of all that history and distills it into bite-sized parts. She keeps her finger firmly on the pulse of the middle school child who is lured into wanting to find out more after reading the short story at the beginning of each chapter, comprising ordinary people from that particular period. The story tells a lot about their thoughts, ideas, customs and beliefs. She focuses on the ‘storytelling aspect’ of history, giving a holistic yet richly detailed view of each era.

Along the way, we get a peek into how historians decode the data they have at hand from archaeological findings, written records, period literature, and any other relics of a period to recreate the how and why of all that has happened. For example, we can know what food people of a period ate and why. In the chapter on the Pallava and Chola dynasties, we learn that people ate many varieties of the dosa, but the idli was not invented yet. How? From the references in the literature of the period. Odes to dosas, but no idlis. Also that spices used in sambar were pepper and tamarind. Chillies and tomatoes were a colonial import, brought by the Portuguese from the Americas in the 1700s.

An enjoyable book, and a valuable addition to the study of Indian history, along with Anu Kumar's 'In the Country of the Gold-digging Ants' and Roshan Dalal's twin volumes by Puffin.

pic courtesy flipkart

Victory Song
Written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Published by Penguin Books India
Age 9-12

Neela is a spunky 12 year old girl living in the British India of the 1930s. It is a few years before the Quit India movement. Freedom fighters are everywhere, in the guise of ordinary people. Neela befriends a young freedom fighter, Samar, during her elder sister’s wedding. Neela's father has to go away to Calcutta on some patriotic work soon after the wedding.

Samar is seriously injured during a raid on a British facility. He takes refuge in Neela’s home, where he is kept in hiding until he is well, as the British soldiers are looking for him. Soon, Neela’s father goes missing in Calcutta. The feisty little girl dresses up as a boy, a wandering minstrel, and takes Samar’s help to go to Calcutta to find her father.

What happens to Samar and Neela in Calcutta? How do they find her father? The rest of this riveting tale on the backdrop of the freedom movement against British rule has to be read to find this out.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni brings us a book for pre-teens that takes us into the everyday world of a girl of the period, complete with people’s attitudes about 'girls should be seen and not heard', and how it is this feisty girl’s courage and resourcefulness that saves the day.

Crossposted at Saffrontree.