Author speak

Amrita Gupta talks to Aravinda Anantharaman about her children’s stories that describe lives in exile.



How did the stories come about?

Everybody in exile has a story. I first met the Tibetan sweater sellers when I was working for an online publication in 1999, and have kept in touch ever since. It seemed unreal to me: on the one hand these people lugging woollens and on the other, them being engaged in guerrilla warfare. Karnataka was the first state to give them asylum (in 1960), but nobody here knows much about these people even after ‘Free Tibet’ activism became a cool movement. There are five full-fledged settlements with schools and medical centres, but we just know there’s a Golden Temple to be gawked at on the way to Coorg.

Is there a specific audience for these stories?

The books are meant for everyone. But the primary audience we are trying to reach out to are the Tibetan kids. These are their stories. The distance [to their culture] is growing; many of these children were born here in India and they belong to generations that are fighting for a country they’ve never seen. There has always been a great oral tradition to pass down stories in prose and verse; in fact Lama Mani is a term for traditional storytellers in Tibet. Still, Tibetan stories are largely Buddhist folk tales with morals, what about what’s going on today? I tried to stay close to that, but still be relevant and contemporary.

So what is different about such books for kids?

Children’s books can raise awareness and get people to pay attention. With so much focus on issues as a whole, the ambitions and dreams of individuals get lost. What’s a children’s book anyway? Simpler language, illustrations…. A good story is something everyone can read – though it may be childlike, it’s not childish. Here there’s no neat plot with conflict and resolution – I just wanted to give a brief but real window into these children’s lives. Freedom, displacement and belonging are not issues impossible to imagine for any age group. If you change the context slightly, anyone can relate to it.

How did you pick the issues you wrote about?

I picked the sweater sellers because they are very visible – they are in National Market and Shivajinagar every winter – and I thought, looking at these people, that when they were young they must have had so many plans that didn’t include this. The old age home is the first in the state – I wanted to document what it’s like there, and show how much children can learn from friendships with old people.

Dolma Visits the City and Dorje’s Holiday at the Gyenso Khan,

under Think Tibet’s publishing imprint Lama Mani Books,

Rs 100 each.

Available at The Tibet Store, 10, St Patrick’s Shopping Arcade, Residency Road (25588-8573).

Mon-Sat, 10am-6pm.

All major cards.

Also available at Blossom Book House, 84/6, Church Street (2532-0400).

Daily 11am-9pm.

All major cards.

Source : Time Out Bengaluru

http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/kids/kids_features_details.asp?code=125

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