Written by Barkha
We held a special program today. Slightly unusual from our other book sessions, today’s session was about the epic of Ramayana. The session was designed to begin with a wonderful story called ‘Hanuman’s Ramayan’, a Tulika publication and a beautifully illustrated book with Mithila folk paintings written by Devdutt Pattanaik. After the story we had a board game, a lot like snakes and ladders based on the popular version of Ramayan.
As we started the story I asked the children about Ramayan. They knew of Ram and his wife Sita, of a palace in Ayodhya, of a monkey by the name of Hanuman who was also Ram’s best friend (as the children called him) and a bad man called Ravan. They all knew about a gada, (Hanuman’s weapon and told me how they all had gada’s in yellow/orange/other colours matching the gold hue!). As we read together we learnt how stories can have multiple versions and that there is no one superior truth. In the story, Hanuman writes Ramayan for his fondness of Ram and for remembering him while Valmiki is threatened as he is the Sage and his word must be above that of a monkey. The book is full of beautiful and detailed imagery. The book reminded us all about perspective and left us recognizing what a special act of friendship Hanuman made Valmiki !
The children were completely fascinated by the game. The game was printed on cloth and covered Ram and Sita’s journey back to Ayodhya. The footwear from olden days, paduka or khadau as it is often called was used as counters. It was good luck where Bharat came to meet Ram and convince him to return and the player was rewarded while Bharat’s return with Ram’s padukas was a negative and one would lose a turn and so on. The game made a complex and long epic so much easier to understand. For die the game had two brass rods flattened with 0, 1, 2 and three holes on four sides so as to add up to 0 for minimum and 6 for maximum during the game.
As we finished the game I asked each of them to tell me something new about Ramayan from the session. One girl told me she was horrified that Ravan tried to kidnap Sita. Another told me she did not know it was a nine day war to win Sita back and another girl told me she did not know about the deer and how he impersonated Ram to capture Sita. She said she did not know that the deer was Ravan’s slave! There was another girl who told me she did not know about Jatayu and how he was hurt because of Ravan.
As I was going home I realized this was probably one of the best ways to share the Ramayan with the children. The children learnt but the interactions with the children taught me much more !
