Subhadra Sen Gupta is known to bring the past alive for children. Many of her children’s books are historical fiction and quite a few short stories are now part of NCERT text books. One of her books, “Mystery of the House of Pigeons” was made into a six-part television serial by Feisal Alkazi for Doordarshan as “Khoj Khazana Khojher”. With 30 books to her credit, she is also the recipient of Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her contribution to children’s literature in English.
Her recent book, “A Children’s History of India”, provides an update on the history of India, from the very beginning of the Indian civilisation in Harappa to modern India that we know today. She loves to travel, play with cats, chat with auto-rickshaw drivers and sit and watch people. We got a chance to talk to her about how history can be made enjoyable for children.
How did you come up with the title “A Children's History of India”?
Because it is a history of India written specifically for children in the 10+ age group. I want children to pick it up knowing it is not a textbook and not something they would find difficult to read.
This book is basically a study of the history of India. How do you think history should be taught so that the children learn more effectively?
Today history is the battleground for political parties where school teachers and parents have no say. With every new government a new syllabus is created and this confuses the children. A class 6th to 8th child needs textbooks that just give them an idea of the chronology of events and details of how people lived in the past. Simply written with lots of pictures, I am hoping this book will help them in class and also be something they’ll enjoy reading.
It is very often seen that children tend to hate the subject of history. What do you think is the reason for it?
Children don’t “hate” history. They dislike the way it is taught in school. They love historical fiction, watch historical television serials and films. Sadly our textbooks turn something so full of life into dead facts. I can get a class of kids to enjoy history just by telling them what people ate for breakfast in Harappa or what they studied in school in Mughal times…information our textbooks rarely have.
What kind of difficulties did you face while writing this book?
Well, over 3000 years of history is hard to handle and the challenge was to make it not just easy to understand but also interesting for a child. That is why I have lots of boxes with fascinating facts. Also, things like acts of Parliament or political concepts had to be simplified to make it easy to understand.
