Once Upon A Time, Long, Long Ago ...

As human beings, we all tell each other stories, every day. Things that happened today, yesterday, many days back, many years back ... these stories define our life. Who are we? How did human beings originate? How did we happen to be where we are? What does our life mean? What is our history? What is the history of our society? The answers lie not just in history, but in much of pre-history. The changes that happened that made us human, that made it possible for societies to form, and civilizations to be established, flourish, and eventually die out, only to have them come up elsewhere. So history, or itihasa (a Sanskrit word that can be literally translated as 'thus indeed it was') is inherently the telling of the stories of how it all happened. Imagine gathering around a consummate storyteller, and listening wide-eyed to tales of long, long ago...

Unfortunately, today children are wont to detest history as it is taught at school. It becomes all about names and dates. Unbelievable as it may seem, I too, hated history as a school child. All we did was memorize the dates of the various dynasties, wars, and treaties, and spout them out in examinations. I was very happy to leave the social sciences behind when I moved on after school. It was only when I began reading up on history without the pressure to learn the dates, (and give examinations that focuses mainly on an ability to rattle off those dates) that I really began to appreciate the beauty of it. Like a person who had been thirsty for so long, I began drinking it all in. The stories, the wonderful stories! I began searching for the histories of almost everything that happened, that was. I found that often the meaning of so many things we do are hidden in the womb of the past, in the history of a culture. That we need to deal with these histories if we are to make any meaningful movement forward. And the best time to start introducing these stories to our children is when they are little.

And we need to keep on asking questions. Questions that keep digging into the past, uncovering the secrets held close in the womb of the earth, sometimes literally. Questions which do not permit the students of history to take anything for granted. Histories written by those in power need not be the whole truth all the time. The everyday histories of the ordinary, the unsung, can often yield much in terms of what we understand about our ancestors. Not only of the history of us, the Homo sapiens sapiens, but also those of the millions of life forms, from the microscopic, to the complex, to those who we have unarguably descended from. Evidence can be often interpreted in multiple ways, and what might be accepted as absolute gospel today might well be overturned by what we might discover tomorrow. For, like all sciences, the students of history, too, need to keep their minds open to infinite possibilities, and not be bogged down by what is the traditionally accepted truth. Check out this extraordinary beginning to the lectures in history that I have linked to in the previous sentence.

More and more, books are written that treat history as what it really is, then - stories of what happened, how it happened, why it happened, when it happened. For yes, dates are important, but only to place any historical event in the context of the rich fabric of the continuity of existence. The one grouse I might have about these books, is that they are often Eurocentric in their treatment of facts, and that good children's literature based in, say, China, or Africa, or the South Americas, or South-East Asia are extremely difficult to find. Even India-centric books have come up only in the past few years, and very few of them on ancient civilizations. There is so much that can be explored here, so much potential...

We, at Saffron Tree, bring to you this CROCUS, a few of these handpicked books on Pre-History and Ancient Civilizations, along with interviews of notable children's writers of historical fiction/ non-fiction. Yes, that is the theme of this year's extravaganza. Unveiling, here, our CROCUS 2014 flyer, created by our very own in-house artist, Lavanya Karthik.
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Coming up...
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Now just keep checking this space for when the fun begins, and do share the news widely, on your blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, by word of mouth ... the more who join in in the stories, the merrier!