Create storytelling hours to humanise history

Narratives of lived experiences add a more intimate touch to the way kids perceive and understand history

- Avantika Bhuyan

Create bonus hours of your own when everyone gets together over a tale or two.

(ISTOCKPHOTO)

While I was growing up, evenings were special. As the dusk settled, there was a brief interlude between the day's chores and dinner. I would sit on the terrace with my grand parents—they would discuss events of the day over tea, and then inevitably go down memory lane. Often a power cut would act like a bonus as everyone else in the family would join us. The inky blankness of night would become a canvas for storytelling.

Amma, my grandmother—a natural storyteller—would recount stories of waiting for Mahatma Gandhi's gatherings as a teenager in Katra, Allahabad, and how the neighbourhood would prepare for this impending visit for days together. My grandfather would narrate the struggles of getting an education in a town in Uttar Pradesh during British rule. Sometimes, the family would discuss the wars that took place post-independence—my father would recall sirens blaring and blackouts in Delhi during the 1965 war. And I would just soak it all in like a sponge, with all these anecdotes and stories becoming larger than life in my imagination. When I look back, narrations of these lived experiences added a different dimension to the way I perceived and understood aspects of history. They added a human touch to the events that we read in history books.

Nothing can replace the joy of listening to countless stories from one's grandparents. Not only are they entertaining but also act as a perfect opportunity for transference of intergenerational wisdom. You get to view the culture of a bygone era in a different light. Till date I can't forget Amma's stories of a woman possessed by a djinn in Allahabad which led to a deeply divided neighbourhood—with some people wanting to call an exorcist and others wanting to take her to a local doctor. It was a time of deep tussle between science and superstition.