Jaipur."Today's parents decide what a child has to buy and they are basically interested in text books. And thus even if a child wants to read fairytales and folktales, he is not able to do so," said the experts at the panel discussion on 'Do Today's Child like to read Fairytales and Folktales?' held on Thursday at the Jaipur Book Fair being organised by National Book Trust at SMS Investment Ground.
"When I was a child I was interested in reading fairytales and folktales and given a chance today's children will do the same. Today, folktales are being translated into English even for those who know the language in which a particular folktale was originally written. This leads to distortion of the story and lack of fun for the readers," said Shri Prempal Sharma, noted litterateur. He however cautioned that some of the folktales are full of superstitions and can have a negative impact on children's personality. And so there is a need to make science fiction also available to them, he added.
"Generally speaking, today's children are not interested in folktales and fairytles as they are living in the world in which monsters, kings and queens are either non-existient or irrelevant. They want to read stories which are related with their lives. But when a fantasy is presented to them in a very effective manner,they like it. The success of Harry Porter is case in point," said Ms Ruchi Singh, freelance journalist and author."The tradition of writing folktales and fairytales in Hindi began in 1914. Initially these were very popular but could not touch the standard set by Hans Anderson whose stories became a success with children worldwide because they were close to the magical realities of a child's life. In contrast, in India , most of writers have weaved a world in their fairytales which are not close to the reality," she added. She observed that folktales amuse the children and also familiarise them with the geographical, social, cultural and religious aspects of other regions.
Chandidutt Shukla, feature editor, Aha! Zindagi, opined that every family should have a fixed budget for purchasing good books and magazines for children. He however lamented that even in the economically well off families , the children want to read fairytales and folktales but the parents have no time either to tell them a story or buy a book. In that case remote of a television is the easiest option available for both for the parents and the child, he added.He went further to bat for children's pleasure reading and said that forget about folk or fairy tales, let the children get to read entertaining and informative tales first.
Charanjeet Dhillon, Director, Bal Bhawan Jaipur, said that children want to read folktales and fairytale and even most of the grown ups do."Children are inquisitive by nature and hence they want to roam into the unknown world and explore new facts," she added. She however wanted that children's authors should bring element of fun into their stories so that children continue to like them She lamented that today's folk and fairy tales brought out for children do not keep track of the socio-economic realities.
Kalpana Jain, editor, Bachchon Ka Desh, Jaipur, supported the views expressed by Ms Dhillon. She said that children like to listen and read fairytales and folktales. " Regular scientific experiments are pointing towards presence of new planets and so the world of fairytales now also appear real to the children," she said adding that a fairytale gives them relief from pressures of life as there is happy ending to every fairytale.
Shri M R Mahapatra, editor and head of National Centre for Children's Literature, a wing of National Book Trust, which organised the panel discussion felt that there is very little meaningful reading stuff for the children today and that is why they want to watch the idiot box. Many youngsters , children's authors such as Smt Sangeeta Sethi and teachers joined in the discussion.