I was reading an old, old set of Amar Chitra Katha-s yesterday, and encountered a set of Jaina stories. They are all to do with how desire is the root of all unhappiness, and how money and the avarice destroys one.
There was also the story of Chandragupta II Vikramaditya, apparently the story of a great and noble king. After the History course we did in college, that seems unlikely. :)
And there is also the representation of legends and myths from the Puranas and the Bhagavatam as real events of the past, and now I think of the different methods of representing the past, historical and ahistorical, a la Ashis Nandy.
Now I wonder what I read of them when I was four, for I definitely remember reading them, but not the lessons.
Perhaps we must reread all our childhood stories again, if only to glean new lessons from them.
2 comments:
Ah.
There was this phase a couple of years back when I reread all the Amar Chitra Kathas at home. There are about a hundred, and I gobbled them all up in a couple of days. :)
Just for the stories, though, not the lessons.
Hmm... even I read Amar Chitra Kathas when I was young, but the only reason I remember for reading them was that - they were there, so I might as well read them. Never particularly liked them even then, if I recall. It was pretty much the same with all books for me till I was about 10 or 11. Till then I just read - without really thinking about why or what I was reading. But yes, it is interesting to read those old stories, if only as a means to reminisce. But I don't think we learn anything new from them.
Incidentally, during these holidays I read the Asterix series again, and still found it incredibly funny. Looking at each panel in detail reveals a lot, (like the family of birds whose home always gets destroyed when a tree is cut. They appear throughout the series) which you perhaps don't notice as a child. :)
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