Open the amazing world of mythology

The other day my husband and me were sitting at the playarea in our apartment complex after our regular walk watching lots of little children playing. At that time a gentleman came and we watched him interact with these children. He was asking them which class where they in, and what they were playing? After this the conversation turned towards mythological stories as the gentleman asked the children if they knew the story of Ganesh and Kartikeya. Some replied in the negative while some children said that they knew the story. Then the gentleman said that he will conduct a quiz to see how much they knew about our Mythology.

We saw that when the gentleman asked simple questions as to who were the three wives of Dasharath or when he asked the name of the sons of Dasharath most of the children did not know the answers.

This made me realise that our children are losing touch with the traditional mythological stories which have been passed on from generation to generation through ages. I remember with great fondness the times that we as kids spent listening to my grand father, father and mother narrating to us the Epics Ramayana and Mahabharatha. We used to enjoy listening to it as much as our grandparents and parents liked to narrate it to us.

I remember the time when Dr.Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan was first shown on T.V it had an amazing effect of uniting all people irrespective of the religion that each belonged to. We had all our neighbours coming to our house religiously every sunday to watch Ramayan. It broke all barriers.

So also when it was my turn, as a parent I did the same thing. I used to narrate the stories of Ramayan, Mahabharath and many other stories and children were fascinated . Their grandparents also had them spell bound. Once they grew old enough to read they started reading on their own.

I felt so proud when in our apartment during a quiz contest which was conducted on the eve of Ganesh Chaturthi festival on Mythological stories children won the contest with the most number of correct answers.

So I hope as parents we can do our bit by seeing to it that we do not forget to pass on this rich heritage to our children. All the book stores these days have a good collection of Amar Chitra Kathas and other attractive picture books on all the Mythological stories. So parents go ahead and weave wonderful stories and take your children through the mystical world of Mythology.