New children's book talks about mental health and meditation

A new children's book takes a leaf out of an episode from the Bhagavad Gita to have conversations around mental health

Very rarely do children's books make an attempt to discuss difficult topics. Stories centered around values of friendship, family and society continue to pervade the narratives of most authors, who write for kids. Breaking through this clutter, is a new book, Gita: The Battle of the Worlds (HarperCollins India) by UK-based writers Sonal Sachdev Patel and Jemma Wayne-Kattan, which has a two-pronged mission — to talk about mental health and meditation, through a modern-day interpretation of an important episode in the Gita. The idea for the book came when Patel was expecting her daughter, around eight years ago. "I felt that I needed to introduce my children to the Gita, but I was unable to find ways to make kids relate to it. It's only when I read Paramhansa Yogananda's interpretation of the text, did it make sense to me," recalls Patel, in a telephonic chat from London.

"Yogananda offered a new insight into the Gita. He explained that the battle that took place between the Kauravas and Pandavas was actually a metaphor for the internal battle that takes place in our lives daily, between our tendencies of being loving and kind, and being angry, jealous and upset," she says. The book is no different. While at the outset, it might appear as a classic story of good overcoming evil, Patel and Kattan talk about a similar battle playing out in the mind of 11-year-old Dev — the protagonist.

Dev, as is also depicted in the vivid illustrations by Soumitra Ranade, can't stop lashing out at those he loves, especially his younger sibling. The source of his angst is the death of his father. His rage almost reaches a tipping point, when Sanjay — a sprite-like being — comes to his rescue. Sanjay embarks on a perilous journey beginning in the darkest realm at the bottom of Dev's spine, to search for the noble warrior Prince Arjun, who is the only hope to put an end to this torment, spearheaded by the wicked Prince Ego. After a weary hunt, during which he encounters starving mobs, thieving gangs, water worlds and lands of fire, he finally finds Arjun on the battlefield. Patel says that discussing mental health through a story from the Gita, came naturally.

Pic/Gita: The Battle of the Worlds, HarperCollins India

"So much of what the Gita teaches is about how to be happy in life and feel peaceful. Also, just by articulating mental health for kids, even if through a story, what we are doing is not making it taboo and that's helpful enough. If we don't simplify it for them, it will become so complex that they won't be able to talk about it in future. I think this is the beginning of a conversation," says Patel.

The book, which took over a year to write, saw Patel bring in her knowledge of the Gita and Yogananda's teachings to the table. Kattan, whose novel After Before was shortlisted for the 2015 Bailey's Women's Prize, created the storyboard for the book. "I remember explaining to Jemma about the battle scene and it was she who said that we should literally take this battle inside the body of a child. That eventually became the crux of our story," says Patel of her author friend.

What Patel is most elated about is making the Gita accessible to kids. "It is a magical text, and relevant all the time. What we are seeing globally is that people are reading this text less and less, especially British Indians like me. The answers to a lot of our problems lie within it. My book is not an alternative to the Gita, it is just a bridge to accessing the real text."

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