Keynote Address - Dr. Rimli Bhattacharya
“How we discern children's literature and how discerning children's literature is.”
Children's literature is a largely overlooked arena of literature, despite being one of the first and foremost forms of cultural media that we are socialised to as human beings. In order to understand the nuances of children’s literature and dissect it critically, the Department of English, LSR decided to organise its Annual Department Conference 2017-18 around the theme of children's literature. Titled “No Child’s Play”, the conference specifically focused on Literatures and/for Childhoods in Contemporary India and commenced on the 16th of March, 2018 with the delivery of the keynote address by Dr Rimli Bhattacharya.
Dr Rimli is an accomplished professor at the Delhi University English Department. Her presentation was titled 'Many Tongues, Many Realities: Discerning Childhood' and it revolved around the primary question of whether heterogeneity can exist along with disparity? In the context of children's literature in India, the central question is about how literature can celebrate diversity as well as depict different communities with all their inconsistencies. Dr Bhattacharya cited the example of Head Curry, a children's book which doesn't shy away from displaying a new perspective by reversing the roles of the child and the parent.
Dr Bhattacharya pointed out how various forms of literature can co-exist without necessarily conforming to one particular notion by showing the examples of paintings from the Chinese Tang Dynasty which were based on stories. She emphasized the point that we must explore, claim and shape different forms of literature in our milieu. Finally, she spoke on the idea of metamorphoses as a recurring theme in Indian stories and folktales. She also elaborated upon the different mediums of movement, sound and expression through which children experience the world. However, unfortunately, they don’t always find accurate representation in children’s literature.
After the presentation, the floor was opened up comments, discussions and rebuttals.The politics behind adults producing literature for children, their omnipresence throughout children’s books and the idea of ‘nostalgia’ that is correlated with the production of children’s literature was discussed extensively during the interactive session. Children's literature is certainly 'no child's play' and Dr Bhattacharya adequately set the tone of the conference by opening up room for further discussion and understanding of children’s literature with her keynote address.
Ishani Pant, English IA
Children's literature is a largely overlooked arena of literature, despite being one of the first and foremost forms of cultural media that we are socialised to as human beings. In order to understand the nuances of children’s literature and dissect it critically, the Department of English, LSR decided to organise its Annual Department Conference 2017-18 around the theme of children's literature. Titled “No Child’s Play”, the conference specifically focused on Literatures and/for Childhoods in Contemporary India and commenced on the 16th of March, 2018 with the delivery of the keynote address by Dr Rimli Bhattacharya.
Dr Rimli is an accomplished professor at the Delhi University English Department. Her presentation was titled 'Many Tongues, Many Realities: Discerning Childhood' and it revolved around the primary question of whether heterogeneity can exist along with disparity? In the context of children's literature in India, the central question is about how literature can celebrate diversity as well as depict different communities with all their inconsistencies. Dr Bhattacharya cited the example of Head Curry, a children's book which doesn't shy away from displaying a new perspective by reversing the roles of the child and the parent.
Dr Bhattacharya pointed out how various forms of literature can co-exist without necessarily conforming to one particular notion by showing the examples of paintings from the Chinese Tang Dynasty which were based on stories. She emphasized the point that we must explore, claim and shape different forms of literature in our milieu. Finally, she spoke on the idea of metamorphoses as a recurring theme in Indian stories and folktales. She also elaborated upon the different mediums of movement, sound and expression through which children experience the world. However, unfortunately, they don’t always find accurate representation in children’s literature.
After the presentation, the floor was opened up comments, discussions and rebuttals.The politics behind adults producing literature for children, their omnipresence throughout children’s books and the idea of ‘nostalgia’ that is correlated with the production of children’s literature was discussed extensively during the interactive session. Children's literature is certainly 'no child's play' and Dr Bhattacharya adequately set the tone of the conference by opening up room for further discussion and understanding of children’s literature with her keynote address.
Ishani Pant, English IA
Panel 1 - A Multi-story Building: Historicizing Indian Children's Literature
Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji
Trignigwigputnam saw a terrible town. Upside-down, was it. Maya became Yama and poked her buffalo’s ear. “Did you smell what I just touched?” Bimbi snorted grass onto her sickle, making Maya-Yama sheepish. Meanwhile, Trignigwigputnam was comparing colours. “Your skin is so dark!” it exclaimed. “Pata hai, it is better than mine coz it doesn’t change colour.” Maya was tired after flying on her magic buffalo all over the sky. Even her buffalo’s ‘potshots’ (literal ones) at irritating adults did not amuse her. She whacked her sickle into a streetlight, and sat down to listen to Trig.
Legend for Interpretation of this Children’s Story
Trignigwigputnam: It’s a fun name. Do not always need to psychoanalyze.
Terrible: Childhood trauma sometimes has great vocabulary.
Upside-down: Children have more potential to subvert than a-dull-ts because their socialisation may be incomplete.
Was it: Good grammar isn’t always a good thing, just like too much of Nirav’s jewellery isn’t.
Maya: Indian children can be protagonists too!
Yama: Gods and Goddesses may not have fixed gender forms.
Poked: When using sharp weapons like tongues, knives or sickles, handle with care.
Buffalo: Buffaloes can be pets too! (Especially if they fly and poop on random people)
Did you: It is okay to not know everything, because if you don’t have questions—you’ll never know!
Smell-Touched: All children are not able-bodied. So, the next time you see a disabled person—(a) strike up a conversation without feeling obligated, (b) ask her/him/them if they need something, (c) they are humans—not monsters or divinity, (d) don’t be scared of difference—it makes life richer. Riches don't come from the vacuum in Antilla, you have to give others access to things that you already have.
Bimbi: All pets are not named Leo and Tommy (imagine a dog named Ravinder, it helps).
Snorted: Buffaloes can be sassy af—ever got a kick in the bum from one?
Maya-Yama: Even though Maya has superpowers, she doesn’t always want to save the world. She’s really tired after doing homework and watching Pogo on weekdays.
Trignigwigputnam: Triggy here loves to read, but can’t. Would you like to tell him a Katha?
Dark: It is okay to have colourful skin even if Alice or Katniss or Harry don’t. Racism sucks. Big time.
Pata hai: English is not the only language children want to read in.
Tired: Superheroines get sleepy too.
Sky: is the limit, not the moral.
Potshots: Potty jokes are really funny, even when you grow up.
Irritating: Older people aren’t always right.
P.S. Forgive the exclamation marks—children aren’t always excited.
P.P.S. Every piece of nonsense written is not a children’s story
***
Context: The Department of English, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, witnessed the first day of its conference No Child’s Play: Literatures and/for Childhoods in Contemporary India on Friday, 16th March, 2018 at Manju Bharat Ram Hall. After the keynote address delivered by Dr Rimli Bhattacharya, officially declared the conference open, the first panel composed of eminent academics: Dr. Nivedita Sen, Dr. Nishat Zaidi, and award-winning artist Mr. Atanu Roy explored the dynamics of historicizing literature for Indian children. Ms. Sanam Khanna moderated the discussion, which traversed diverse regional and linguistic spaces and evolved through the illustrations of Mr. Roy.
Tript Kaur, English IIIA
Picturing Childhoods
In conversation with a teacher today, a friend of mine told her that she loved Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Ma’am responded she could never enjoy the book. In continuation, my friend responded that hers was an illustrated copy, and the teacher in question (Ms. Rukshana Shroff) responded that “That, perhaps, made all the difference.”
The picture book has often been relegated to the realm of children’s literature, even when it is very ‘adult’ in its theme. Even a gory and violent manga like Attack on Titan (whose depictions of violence have been compared to the adult-exclusive Game of Thrones) has been classified as shonen, which targets an adolescent male audience. There is nothing inherently wrong with the picture book being targeted towards the child reader—the problem lies in how this classification implies that a rich and varied genre is apropos to the infantile.
One look at Atanu Roy’s work will reveal that there is nothing inherently ‘infantile’ about the picture, the children’s book, or even children’s imaginations and aesthetic sensibility. In his presentation during the second panel, ‘A Multi Story Building’, Atanu Roy had little to say, but his pictures spoke a thousand words. The panel, which was about historicizing and analyzing children’s literature in India, included Mr Roy because of his years of experience in illustrating children’s literature.
At the outset, Mr Roy specified that illustrating involves a constant recreation of style, form and genre—“one that fine art does not necessarily demand”. As an illustrator, there is consistent stylistic diversity in his works, from his illustration of an old celestial woman with golden birds in The Gijjigadus and the Fireflies to his line drawings for the Asian Festival of Children’s Content 2014. Yet there is one constant which stands out for me: the immense detail, which invites any viewer to revisit the illustration as they grow, and peel another layer of a drawing they assumed they were familiar with. Viewing a page of his work will reveal that Mr Roy creates pictures with the confidence and knowledge that the child reader will be able to imbibe the picture, as one does words— sometimes, in a way that words seem superfluous.
In a very famous illustration, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry determined in The Little Prince, that adults knew nothing, because they lacked the insight to know that what they perceived as a hat, was actually an elephant being swallowed by a snake, and it was “tiresome for children to always have to explain everything to them”. Perhaps Roy’s greatest strength is that he does not underestimate the aesthetic sensibility of the child, but invites them to explain it to the adults around them.
Stuti Pachisia, III B
In conversation with a teacher today, a friend of mine told her that she loved Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Ma’am responded she could never enjoy the book. In continuation, my friend responded that hers was an illustrated copy, and the teacher in question (Ms. Rukshana Shroff) responded that “That, perhaps, made all the difference.”
The picture book has often been relegated to the realm of children’s literature, even when it is very ‘adult’ in its theme. Even a gory and violent manga like Attack on Titan (whose depictions of violence have been compared to the adult-exclusive Game of Thrones) has been classified as shonen, which targets an adolescent male audience. There is nothing inherently wrong with the picture book being targeted towards the child reader—the problem lies in how this classification implies that a rich and varied genre is apropos to the infantile.
One look at Atanu Roy’s work will reveal that there is nothing inherently ‘infantile’ about the picture, the children’s book, or even children’s imaginations and aesthetic sensibility. In his presentation during the second panel, ‘A Multi Story Building’, Atanu Roy had little to say, but his pictures spoke a thousand words. The panel, which was about historicizing and analyzing children’s literature in India, included Mr Roy because of his years of experience in illustrating children’s literature.
At the outset, Mr Roy specified that illustrating involves a constant recreation of style, form and genre—“one that fine art does not necessarily demand”. As an illustrator, there is consistent stylistic diversity in his works, from his illustration of an old celestial woman with golden birds in The Gijjigadus and the Fireflies to his line drawings for the Asian Festival of Children’s Content 2014. Yet there is one constant which stands out for me: the immense detail, which invites any viewer to revisit the illustration as they grow, and peel another layer of a drawing they assumed they were familiar with. Viewing a page of his work will reveal that Mr Roy creates pictures with the confidence and knowledge that the child reader will be able to imbibe the picture, as one does words— sometimes, in a way that words seem superfluous.
In a very famous illustration, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry determined in The Little Prince, that adults knew nothing, because they lacked the insight to know that what they perceived as a hat, was actually an elephant being swallowed by a snake, and it was “tiresome for children to always have to explain everything to them”. Perhaps Roy’s greatest strength is that he does not underestimate the aesthetic sensibility of the child, but invites them to explain it to the adults around them.
Stuti Pachisia, III B
Student Performance: Raskin Adapted - Part 1
The English Department organised a student performance based on one of the stories from Alexander Raskin’s book, When Daddy Was a Little Boy on its first day of Annual Conference, Friday, 16th March, 2018. The performance commenced with one of the actors tossing a coin repeatedly and attaining heads each time. This beginning, attempted to bring back the nostalgia and memories attached with the playful act of tossing a coin. But this train of thought was immediately disturbed with serious and troublesome concerns about mortgages and death being aptly enacted, placing the performance in its grim and grotesque context of the Cold War, during which this collection of stories was published.
The performance proceeded with the main narrative being set in a classroom wherein the protagonist ‘Little Daddy’, who is now grown up, recollects how he was made fun of and called out by names like ‘Professor’, ‘Poet’ and ‘Honey’. Similarly, every student in the class was referred to with nicknames which were precisely associated with his/her physical features and behavioural patterns. The tendency of children to be humorous makes them crack jokes on other people. They, being young and immature, are unaware of the fact that in this pursuit of having ‘fun’, they become cruel to those they mock. The habit of doing so has been normalised and those who protest are disregarded.
The impact of such instances is not limited to simply recreational relief. Due to complete ignorance of the importance of mental health, one ignores how a person, especially a child, who is publicly ridiculed, is put through psychological disturbances that could have a large impact on them. . Parents and teachers play an important role in the perpetuation of such a culture because their reactions direct and build children’s way of interacting with one another.
The children's teacher attempts to highlight for her class why name-calling might be hurtful. This does not work out. Ultimately, the teacher addresses the student's using their nicknames, which leaves the children's parents confused and highlights a generation gap. This is a concern even in the contemporary world, where the children and parents lack in socialising due to a difference in their ideologies and have less insight into the problems that each one faces.
The performance was followed by a discussion with the audience which was moderated by Professor Karuna Rajeev. She briefly talked about the historical context in which the novel is placed and traced the emergence of capitalism in the period. She threw light on how the people in the regional space of India felt alienated from the usage of a foreign language like Russian. She also pointed out the problem of accessibility of such literary works to children from various economic classes. The interactive session focused on how the propaganda that catered to “When Daddy Was a Little Boy” is benign on its exterior but points to social and psychological being of a child at many levels. The realisation of one suffering from violence and not being vocal about it comes when young adults look back in retrospection.
Akshita Ajitsariya, English IB
The performance proceeded with the main narrative being set in a classroom wherein the protagonist ‘Little Daddy’, who is now grown up, recollects how he was made fun of and called out by names like ‘Professor’, ‘Poet’ and ‘Honey’. Similarly, every student in the class was referred to with nicknames which were precisely associated with his/her physical features and behavioural patterns. The tendency of children to be humorous makes them crack jokes on other people. They, being young and immature, are unaware of the fact that in this pursuit of having ‘fun’, they become cruel to those they mock. The habit of doing so has been normalised and those who protest are disregarded.
The impact of such instances is not limited to simply recreational relief. Due to complete ignorance of the importance of mental health, one ignores how a person, especially a child, who is publicly ridiculed, is put through psychological disturbances that could have a large impact on them. . Parents and teachers play an important role in the perpetuation of such a culture because their reactions direct and build children’s way of interacting with one another.
The children's teacher attempts to highlight for her class why name-calling might be hurtful. This does not work out. Ultimately, the teacher addresses the student's using their nicknames, which leaves the children's parents confused and highlights a generation gap. This is a concern even in the contemporary world, where the children and parents lack in socialising due to a difference in their ideologies and have less insight into the problems that each one faces.
The performance was followed by a discussion with the audience which was moderated by Professor Karuna Rajeev. She briefly talked about the historical context in which the novel is placed and traced the emergence of capitalism in the period. She threw light on how the people in the regional space of India felt alienated from the usage of a foreign language like Russian. She also pointed out the problem of accessibility of such literary works to children from various economic classes. The interactive session focused on how the propaganda that catered to “When Daddy Was a Little Boy” is benign on its exterior but points to social and psychological being of a child at many levels. The realisation of one suffering from violence and not being vocal about it comes when young adults look back in retrospection.
Akshita Ajitsariya, English IB
Panel 2 - Who Are We Kidding?: The 'Indian' Child as Audience
Accessibility and Representation: Children as Audience
The second panel of the Department of English, LSR’s Annual Conference ‘No Child’s Play’ titled ‘Who Are We Kidding: The ‘Indian’ Child As An Audience’ began with the moderator, Dr. Renish Geevarghese Abraham, questioning the very idea of children’s literature, the ‘adult gaze’ with which looms large over children’s literature and, finally, what constitutes the audience which consumes this brand of literature. The two speakers on the panel were Geeta Dharmarajan and Ishani Butalia.
Geeta Dharmarajan is a writer, social entrepreneur and educationist. She is the founder and executive director of Katha, a non-profit organization which publishes and translates books for children, deriving stories from mostly Indian folklore and mythology. Ishani Butalia is a commissioning editor for the Young Zuban list. She has earlier worked on both the Sexual Violence and Impunity, (SVI) Project and the Women’s Museum Project. She has also been involved with The YP Foundation in New Delhi and Rubbabu in New Jersey.
Children's literature in contemporary India is far more varied and diverse than one would expect. One of the primary issues with children’s literature in India is that of accessibility. Ishani Butalia explored this issue in her presentation along with the multifaceted problem of representation in Indian children's literature.
She began by saying that while she produces and creates work for children, she does not know how to get them out to a bigger audience or audiences in other Indian languages. She mentions issues such as lack of support from government in terms of grants, other Indian publishing houses, and the educational system.
Further problematizing the idea of genre, she talks about how the children’s literature ends up being ‘semi-educational’ as most often than not, it is parents who are buying the books for them. Children’s literature tends to valorize the protagonist as exceptional and moral, instead of telling stories about regular people with regular flaws. Instead of stories only about strongly etched and powerful characters, narratives having settings and people familiar to the reader can prove to be more important and accessible. There is a growing need for children’s writers and illustrators to be more sensitive and aware about accessibility to every kind of reader.
The other issues that she takes up is representation in the children’s literature. One of her worries is that the children are generally presented in a patronizing manner. While there is a lot of talk about diversity, inclusion and representation, one really needs to define and explore these terms correctly. Representation, she believes, is about people seeing themselves in the stories more than the storytellers ticking the boxes of all the people it included.
Shanna Jain, English 1B
Literature for the Extraordinary Child
‘I have seen so many extraordinary things, nothing seems extraordinary anymore.’ —Lewis Carroll
The second panel on the first day of No Child’s Play: Literatures and/for Childhood in Contemporary India discussed the question of the readership of children’s literature. After Ms Geeta Dharmarajan outlined the difficulties of access for children, and the necessity for enabling the child to be a reader and teach other children, Ms Ishani Butalia spoke about the politics of access. Drawing from her work with Young Zubaan, Ms. Butalia spoke about how as a publishing house that wants to cater to children, but is compelled to also cater to parents, their aim of creating engaging literature for children must be couched in prescriptiveness.
Discussing 'the many ways in which adults fail us’, Ms. Butalia discussed what happens when children's literature deals with themes and subjects that supposedly fall outside the ambit of what children are supposed to deal with in literature: ironically, these are issues that children often have to deal with in life. It is important to not have children's literature be homogeneously aspirational, and represent the wide range of complexities that our lives are riddled with.
This manifests itself in several ways—in the questioning of what is “appropriate” for children’s literature, on how difficult it is to get books out there when there are so many limitations to access, and also in the typecasting of children. Ms. Butalia pointed out how so many child protagonists are aspirational or inspirational. In the Indian context, this can become overcoming immense hardships, obtaining sky-high scores in examinations, or being paragons of virtue. In short, extraordinary. The problem with this, however, is that it does not apply to most of us. As children (and as adults), we go through our daily lives snoozing in buses in the afternoon, creating fantasy lands in parks, and playing with an intensity we may never recover later. Most of us are ordinary kids—we do not subscribe to the markers of extraordinariness.
Ms Butalia discussed how as a publishing house for children, Young Zubaan aspires to represent this very ordinariness in the genre of children’s fiction. Along with this come more intersectional experiences that must be talked about. She spoke of the need to represent children from marginalised spaces without ennobling or fetishizing them unnecessarily. Them for her, then, is to create a “fun publishing house”, one that does not aim to inculcate moral values or high expectations in children, but one that lets them turn the pages of books and see themselves along with things that interest them. This becomes especially important so that the child is not alienated from themself: while most of us might never receive letters from Hogwarts or be academically outstanding from Class 2 to Class 12, we can all experience the intensity of friendships of summer afternoons in Malgudi.
Anushmita Mohanty, IIIB
‘I have seen so many extraordinary things, nothing seems extraordinary anymore.’ —Lewis Carroll
The second panel on the first day of No Child’s Play: Literatures and/for Childhood in Contemporary India discussed the question of the readership of children’s literature. After Ms Geeta Dharmarajan outlined the difficulties of access for children, and the necessity for enabling the child to be a reader and teach other children, Ms Ishani Butalia spoke about the politics of access. Drawing from her work with Young Zubaan, Ms. Butalia spoke about how as a publishing house that wants to cater to children, but is compelled to also cater to parents, their aim of creating engaging literature for children must be couched in prescriptiveness.
Discussing 'the many ways in which adults fail us’, Ms. Butalia discussed what happens when children's literature deals with themes and subjects that supposedly fall outside the ambit of what children are supposed to deal with in literature: ironically, these are issues that children often have to deal with in life. It is important to not have children's literature be homogeneously aspirational, and represent the wide range of complexities that our lives are riddled with.
This manifests itself in several ways—in the questioning of what is “appropriate” for children’s literature, on how difficult it is to get books out there when there are so many limitations to access, and also in the typecasting of children. Ms. Butalia pointed out how so many child protagonists are aspirational or inspirational. In the Indian context, this can become overcoming immense hardships, obtaining sky-high scores in examinations, or being paragons of virtue. In short, extraordinary. The problem with this, however, is that it does not apply to most of us. As children (and as adults), we go through our daily lives snoozing in buses in the afternoon, creating fantasy lands in parks, and playing with an intensity we may never recover later. Most of us are ordinary kids—we do not subscribe to the markers of extraordinariness.
Ms Butalia discussed how as a publishing house for children, Young Zubaan aspires to represent this very ordinariness in the genre of children’s fiction. Along with this come more intersectional experiences that must be talked about. She spoke of the need to represent children from marginalised spaces without ennobling or fetishizing them unnecessarily. Them for her, then, is to create a “fun publishing house”, one that does not aim to inculcate moral values or high expectations in children, but one that lets them turn the pages of books and see themselves along with things that interest them. This becomes especially important so that the child is not alienated from themself: while most of us might never receive letters from Hogwarts or be academically outstanding from Class 2 to Class 12, we can all experience the intensity of friendships of summer afternoons in Malgudi.
Anushmita Mohanty, IIIB
Child's Play: Pop Culture Quiz
Making Curious George ‘Curious’
Much of our childhood is spent in asking questions and wondering. In that spirit, the English Department conference, No Child’s Play, also consisted of a pop quiz on childhoods and children’s literature which was appropriately titled, ‘Child’s Play’. The quiz was held at 12:45 PM on the first day of the conference in Room 28. It was organized in collaboration with the Quiz Society of LSR, and saw the participation of various inter-collegiate teams. The quizmaster, Akash Verma, is a prominent quizzer of the Delhi circuit, and has made several pop quizzes.
Having such a quiz is important in itself, because not only does it broaden the scope of academic conferences—it also is imbibed with the sense of fun that childhood is made of. The questions of the quiz invited a nostalgic remembrance of our childhoods: the books we read, the shows we watched and even the names of the toffees we ate. The fact that these links were so prominent for everyone was evident because every time the answers were given away, the audience immediately responded with excited familiarity.
An audience member, Deep, remarked, “While the questions were really interesting, the best part about the quiz was how the quizmaster forced everyone to go back to their childhoods and look for clues.” The final winners of this engaging and fun quiz were Gokul S from Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies (SSCBS) and Gaurav Jena from Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College (ARSD) in the first place, who won by a large margin. Rabin Jacob from Delhi University and Reyna Shruti from Campus Law Centre placed second.
Stuti Pachisia, III B
Much of our childhood is spent in asking questions and wondering. In that spirit, the English Department conference, No Child’s Play, also consisted of a pop quiz on childhoods and children’s literature which was appropriately titled, ‘Child’s Play’. The quiz was held at 12:45 PM on the first day of the conference in Room 28. It was organized in collaboration with the Quiz Society of LSR, and saw the participation of various inter-collegiate teams. The quizmaster, Akash Verma, is a prominent quizzer of the Delhi circuit, and has made several pop quizzes.
Having such a quiz is important in itself, because not only does it broaden the scope of academic conferences—it also is imbibed with the sense of fun that childhood is made of. The questions of the quiz invited a nostalgic remembrance of our childhoods: the books we read, the shows we watched and even the names of the toffees we ate. The fact that these links were so prominent for everyone was evident because every time the answers were given away, the audience immediately responded with excited familiarity.
An audience member, Deep, remarked, “While the questions were really interesting, the best part about the quiz was how the quizmaster forced everyone to go back to their childhoods and look for clues.” The final winners of this engaging and fun quiz were Gokul S from Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies (SSCBS) and Gaurav Jena from Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College (ARSD) in the first place, who won by a large margin. Rabin Jacob from Delhi University and Reyna Shruti from Campus Law Centre placed second.
Stuti Pachisia, III B
Student Panel: Paper Presentation
The Student’s Panel of “No Child’s Play” was a delightful conclusion to the first day of the annual academic conference of the Department of English, Lady Shri Ram College for Women. Moderated by Ms Maitrayee Roychoudhury, it greatly helped to highlight the importance of engaging students in academia and to understand the various perspectives which they bring. Four students presented their papers in the form of a presentation during the Student’s Panel.
Anam Fatima, a Master’s student from Hansraj College, presented her paper on the digitalisation of children’s cartoons and their impact on the kind of culture that is consumed by children in India. The second presentation was given by Priyanka Kapoor, a Master’s student from Lady Shri Ram College for Women. Through her paper, explored the idea of fear and anxiety which act as mingled emotional drivers in children’s novels pertaining to the ‘horror’ genre. She also created a distinction about two kinds of fears, paranoid anxiety and safe fear, by closely examining R.L.Stine’s Be Careful What You Wish For and few of Ruskin Bond’s short stories.
The third paper presentation was given by Tanvi Chowdhury, who questioned the impact of reading Blyton as a non-white Indian child living in post-colonial India in her paper. She stated that while Blyton creates her child protagonists with humour and honour, these values are intrinsically English in their nature and they reflect the socio-cultural ethos of England seeped in class hierarchies and racist tendencies. Lastly, Devika Asthana presented her paper on childhood and sexuality, stressing on children’s sexuality which lies outside the realm of sexual abuse. Using Pankaj Butalia’s Dark Room: Child Sexuality in India, she emphasised on how childhood and sexuality are seen as two ends of a spectrum and often silenced under muffled breaths.
The paper presentations were followed by a round of discussion where several questions on issues pertaining to the papers were asked and commented upon. This included the dichotomy between child sexuality and sensuality, use of children as a symbol of resistance across various cultural media and the portrayal of ‘gyrating’ children in various reality shows on television. The panel concluded with the declaration of the best paper which was awarded to Devika for her insightful and novel work on children’s sexuality.
Arundhati Subhedar, II A