Listen! This was a signal for the little ones to crowd around grandmother in her story-telling sessions, looked for with zest. She dwelt on themes from folk tales, the epics, and other lore—of heroism, adventure, fantasies of strength, folly of passion, irredeemable love, jealousy, wiles, perfidy and nemesis, tragedy of conceit, mighty confrontations, triumph of nobility and virtue, doctrines of conduct, devotion and defiance of even death, frolics of Gods, beauty and truth. The values emerged subtly yet forcefully, for all time. The venue was the home, outside it, under the banyan tree, the village centre, and other nodal points of community gathering. When the stream combined literature, legends, rhythms, music, social satire and humour without malice, it developed the katha tradition. This, for long, sustained our literature and cultural concepts. The listeners often represented two, at times, three generations, exposed to the same material. Wisdom cut through age. The incidents, events, rich in story-line and action, enthralled children. Literature, solely for children as such, was not conceived. The coming of Western public school education brought the need for textbook material, and literature for subsidiary reading for children. The latter introduced fresh forms and structures not known earlier, causing a fertilization of ideas. Independence witnessed a resurgence of literary effort, utilizing the wealth of our old literature, creating novel forms and adopting new approaches. The achievement is considerable. Ours is an endeavour to gather in some measure this literature for children, to provide material for study and research, and to stimulate further growth. The authors are eminent literary personalities, and professional experts. Not all chapters are even or carried forward equally, given the effort by the publisher and the cooperation of the contributors. The volume does not reflect completeness of data and detail in a fast-moving and a highly creative area. Heedless, time moves on.
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