FREDERICK NORONHA
So, are children in Goa destined to grow up without stories from their own culture? Actually, there are only a few books related to Goa, available for children here. If they have been published, these are currently hard to find. Or, the stories are in a language which doesn’t match with the parents’ aspirations or children’s preferences, or one which the kids are familiar with.
In a way, young minds are being colonised. They will grow up thinking that the centre of the world is in some distant land. Maybe in Europe or the U.S. But, they will believe, Goa is not the place where things can, and should, happen.
This reminds me of the early 1970s, when we were in a similar setting. In Class 3, I won a class prize: Enid Blyton’s ‘The Family at Red Roofs’. In it, one reads of cherry trees, beech trees, oak trees, and apple trees.
For refreshments, there was a wide choice — jam tarts, scones with jam and clotted cream, gingerbread, potted meat sandwiches, treacle tart, ginger beer, and hot cocoa. Even the architecture was so alien, not to speak of the geography. After struggling with making sense for a while, the solution was to invent some trees and food in your imagination. Never mind that they looked nothing like the real thing, and one never got to know any better.
Enid Blyton was a delight to read. She still is, even if some accuse her of racism, misogyny and the like. One generation on, as my son encountered her for the first time, he was instantly glued to her writing. He ate with one hand, and read from the open book with the other. Children can find good writers addictive.
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But for good writing to happen, the books must get a chance to surface. As far as Goa goes, check out and see how little local writing exists for children.
You’ll hardly find any books in English. Devanagari Konkani has benefitted from government support for the last nearly four odd decades. But all these works are not easily visible, or find-able. Some efforts have been made to produce some little in recent times, apparently without much success. Libraries prefer to import books from elsewhere, including the giant next-door Maharashtra market.
This weekend, and till coming Monday (March 3), the Goa Book Fair & Children’s Literature Festival is underway at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao. Open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., it promises “150+ sessions, 100+ speakers, five days of bliss”. It’s scale and scope is ambitious, and worth checking out. How many parents and children take advantage is yet to be seen (at the time of writing).
This event describes itself saying, “In addition to many children’s book publishers taking part, there will be many programmes to keep the kids engaged and interested. See our schedule for more. See
goabookfair.com
Other ventures too should not be forgotten. Bookaroo, the children’s book festival, visited Goa in 2015. Probably because it drew such a poor response, this amazing festival never really returned here. It’s a shame. (Bookaroo was born in Delhi in 2008.) Children’s Book Trust activities are hardly visible
in Goa.
There are some other ventures too. The not-for-profit charity Bookworm has done interesting (and sustained) work in promoting reading among children.
Still, having access to books, and promoting a culture of local writing for children, are two separate things. There have been attempts in the past, and some now too. Publishers Rajhauns’ magazine for children (in Devanagari Konkani), and another from the Goa Jesuits, some time back, for instance. Both are no longer available.
Some Goa-authored books are available online. The problem with these is that they might not get noticed. You have to know a book exists somewhere (or accidentally run into it), to get access to such books.
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Marinella Proença, from Calangute, recently shared a copy of a large-size, neatly coloured book titled ‘Trails by the Farm’. There, the children readers (or those it’s being read to) encounter talking “animal-friends”. This lot finds “something interesting to persue each day”.
Proença, who is a grandmother herself, says she wrote ‘Trails by the Farm’ “to bring children closer to nature, she being so beautiful with different seasons, animals and birds, trees and streams, sunrise and sunset.”
The book starts at 9 o’clock, with Betty the bulbul singing, Rocky the rooster grumbling about the disturbance the previous night, Harry who can’t decide whether he is a rabbit or a hare, and Pedro, waddling on webbed feet. Pandu is also there, eager and in a hurry to grow into a handsome bull. We are told about Farmer Augie, who owns
the farm.
Those who grew up in another, charming and adventure-filled Goa, know what this region meant to them. When you encounter it in print, a child is able to re-imagine their very own areas and regions.
This helps to understand our Goa and treasure it. No longer do we need to believe that our land is some poor cousin to crowded, big cities in the rest of India, or snazzier capitals in other parts of the world.
Many years ago, we encountered tales from the slender ‘Tales from Golden Goa’, by the Mapusa-based Anita Pinto. The then-tiny children were even more fascinated by the setting of the stories. It’s hard to forget what one asked: “Is this ‘our Calangute’?”
Most children in Goa will not be accustomed to encountering local places and spaces in their own storybooks. This, though, might vary from language to language, as Konkani tends to be written almost exclusively by local authors. But, such debates perhaps call for more detailed studies by educationists and the impact this has on young minds.
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There must be some reason why Goa can produce so little children’s books, magazines and other literature of its own. One reason could well be that children’s books need colour printing, and this can be costly. More so, in a small market, where the number of readers are only a few.
Whatever the case, anyone who feels this is an important issue (educators, parents, citizens, librarians and bibliophiles) need to sit together and somehow come to some solution to this issue.
As of now, all the links in this chain are broken. Because it’s costly to produce, such books are not being created. This leads to few being sold, or being visible. Nobody misses these (anyway) invisible local books for children. Thus, the cycle goes on. Somewhere, things need to change. But how?
