While I was in Mumbai, I went with Vibha to a meeting organized by India Book House to discuss prospects for new books in the area of special needs. The original idea was for Vibha to write a book for parents of kids with disabilities, but she cleverly passed the task on to me. While I didn’t make a commitment, the concept does appeal. In the meeting, however, other ideas came up, like one that IBH should produce a series of books for kids on values, books to specifically address issues like diversity, bullying, gender equality, communalism and respect for the environment. Sounds sensible, right?

Wrong! Both Vibha and I reacted with horror at the idea of contriving children’s books which are actually sermons. First of all, it doesn’t work. Kids can spot a sermon a mile away and they will run just as far in the opposite direction to avoid it. And second, it isn’t necessary. A good story, well-written, will naturally address issues because life is full of them. You can’t write a real story without them. Look at Harry Potter, which children and adults adored. The entire series is about honor, courage, integrity, the struggle between good and evil, child abuse, jealousy, the corruption of power and the triumph of love. Issues in abundance! But J K Rowling didn’t set out to write a morality play. She set out to write a STORY.

The thing most missing in Indian education is imagination and creativity. And perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than in the average children’s section in the average bookstore in the average Indian city. Almost without exception, the books on sale are textbooks, “educational” books (1001 Questions and Answers, Tell Me Why, Encyclopedias, Dictionaries and Atlases) and canned re-packages of Disney movies and cartoons. The occasional story books are usually cookie-cutter versions of familiar tales, with uninspired illustrations and tired prose. How can we expect to feed a child’s soul with such inferior stuff? Where’s the drama, the beauty, the poetry, the joy?

We are all waiting for Indian writers and artists to create stories and pictures from the stuff of their lives: vivid tales of childhood here in India, peopled with the crazy characters we all know and meet every day – the sabzi walla, the eccentric neighbor, the nani-masi who knows everything everyone in the neighborhood is up to, the mailman who finds you no matter how many times you move, that fellow who’s sharpened your knives for the past twenty-five years and whose kids are now in college. What we need are stories.