Bookmarking real stories

Shobha Viswanath

A GLIMPSE of rural life cannot be summarised with scribbles of hay, sun and a tractor. There is a need for children in urban India to get a glimpse of real stories from the part of the country that is occupied by over 65 per cent of its population. Over the years, children's literature has done little to bridge this gap in representation, and independent publishing house Karadi Tales' new chapter books is a step to remedy that.

In collaboration with the digital journalism platform People's Archive of Rural India (PARI), founded by Magsaysay awardee P Sainath, the publishers have launched five titles meant for readers between 10 and 15 years of age under the imprint Minmini Reads. Each narrative is based on reportage by PARI's journalists. Through the titles - No Nonsense Nandhini by Aparna Karthikeyan, No Ticket, Will Travel by Subuhi Jiwani, Coming Home by Priti David, A Big Splash by Nivedha Ganesh, and House of Uncommons by Vishaka George - children will be acquainted with stories of people like Chandra Subramanian, a single mother who runs a Sampangi farm in Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu or Dhivya, a young farmer, who swims her way to the Paralympics, having prior experience only in the tank and lake in her village.

Shobha Viswanath, co-founder and publishing director at Karadi Tales, shares that the series has been in the works for a year. "Sainath is a good friend. He would share a report and article that would go up on PARI. They then got into education and started putting out e-books, which made me realise that this was a treasure trove of stories waiting to be told. Kids in urban places know only stories of their own lives; they only read about rural characters as 'a character' in an urban setting," she shares.

No Ticket, Will Travel comprises short stories on migrant labourers

Karadi Tales then shortlisted reports to be converted into chapter books. These articles spanned, at best, 1,000 words so they had to be fleshed out. Certain fictional elements were added, with the consent of the real protagonists. Although it is often caricaturised, Viswanath, citing PARI's archives, says that there is nothing as diverse as rural India and it was important to bring that out. "I didn't even know that there was a community home for HIV-positive children. These are the kind of stories that 100 per cent need to be shared. We've got five but there are probably 50,000!" she states. The team hopes that educational institutions pick up these books as a reading supplement for kids, and not just restrict them to the library.

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