Children’s literature needs a hero

together with the larger question of whether books are fighting a losing battle against the facilities provided by the electronic revolution, it is also being asked, whither children's literature? the question comes naturally as the greats of the past have not been followed by any really worthwhile names. the associated issues are, the mind of the child in a fast changing world and the ability of the writers of today to relate themselves to the present generation of children.the dd bangla programme abol tabol had sailen ghosh and bhabaniprasad majumdar answering questions from their young audience last sunday. both are writers of books for children but none appeared to know the children's language. majumdar spoke of literaure being a mirror of life not realising perhaps that the wide-eyed kids were still some distance away from the threshhold of life. as for ghosh he insisted on giving sermons on the lapses of the education system, the shortcomings of nuclear families and how parents were not really fulfiling their duties by not allowing any relaxation for their children. all valid points but made at the wrong place. a 30-minute programme does not allow any detailed discussion but even then sailen ghosh was able to reiterate that he did not consider ghost stories as part of children's literature. but then what is or should be children's literature, fairy tales in this age when man has already landed on the moon? his audience correctly felt otherwise and gleefully informed him that they enjoyed ghost stories. incidentally ghosh himself writes such stories and for whom, the adults? the person anchoring the programme had raised that question but was curtly dismissed by ghosh with a writer has the freedom to write what he wants to. untouched was also the very important question, at what age does childhood end in the present day world. the day before the same channel discussed the highly topical issue of destroying wetlands with the ministers for municipal affairs, fisheries, the mayor of kolkata and heads of two municipalities. there was a lot of buck-passing and what emerged ultimately was that none of them was prepared to shoulder any responsibility. the mayor and the boss of kamarhati municipality insisted that they did not have the infrastructure to check the filling up of water bodies and the lady from baranagar municipality admitted that she was helpless as the records were often tampered with — i see wetlands being filled up but in my office the book describes the property as homestead land. the fisheries minister suggested that the civic bodies could take the lead in developing pisciulture on a cooperative basis to which the mayor bluntly replied, growing fish is not the job of kolkata corporation. going by what was said it appears that protecting wetlands does not appear to be anybody's job though all were agreed that the law regarding this must be followed. and all being politicians they unanimously agreed that no political party was involved in such racket, only anti-socials. doordarshan being official is always restrained. any private channel would surely have torn them to pieces. from pisciulture to school education. akash bangla has this programme mantrimoshai shunchhen which has ministers replying to complaints. last week, the complaints were about non-attendance of teachers and fudging of records to help a particular student. in both cases, specific details were provided. all that minister kanti biswas could say was that in a corrupt society educational institutions were also bound to be affected. the rot has really gone in deep.