Where are the sparrows?

It is easy to run down television, but aren't we overdoing its impact on children?

Does it convey a dumbing down if children between three and four can recall names of brands and TV channels, but do not recognise a sparrow?

TOI reporting on the survey conducted by Podar Institute across a few schools in Mumbai started with this statement:

“Parents often pride themselves on their children’s skills but a recent survey might leave many embarrassed."

Many parents these days push their children on TV reality shows. One might question some of them, and even the intent to be in the public eye, but it is essentially to showcase the talent they think their kids possess.

Before such shows, children invariably were asked to perform before visitors - “Beta, recite that poem...show aunty that dance...tell uncle how you will save your sister with karate chops..." (How many children are asked to show skills in mathematics or history?) TV shows have given a wider platform to these same performances. While I do get pretty disgusted watching people so young make adult moves, tell off-colour jokes, is it not a fact that in real life this would be seen as 'older than her/his age'?

The survey sample was 2000 — 500 each from the 3/4 year and fe/male gender bracket. It also concentrated on a fairly uniform socio-economic background. The director of the institute observed:

“Children learn many things from watching television, especially commercials. Brands are not something parents or schools teach, but kids automatically absorb the information because it comes from a very colourful medium.”

I would extend the argument to iconic people and events as brands. The images of Gandhi are 'colourful' — his clothes, glasses, spinning wheel, and his quick gait. I recall a cousin dressing up as Tagore for a fancy dress competition and another as Indira Gandhi, much as one sees them on some reality shows. What, then, makes the latter bad? Some kids talk about events, and although I vehemently oppose children being used to make a point about religion or terrorism, one may surmise that they are not unaware of things around them.

The absorption is based on observation. If 85 per cent could name brands of chocolate, is it only due to the onslaught of televised images? There is no doubt that a story related to the product makes it easy to remember, but what child of an earlier generation would not tell you about the same, and even of other products? Perhaps, if a survey was conducted in those days, the results may not have been too different. I clearly recall Kiss Me toffees and Cadbury's.

90% could identity fast-food joints and names of powdered energy drinks. Is it because of the electronic media or more access? More families are eating out and the family dinner is about where to eat as much as what to eat. Energy drinks on TV work in tandem with how parents force them down kids. Again, Bournvita, Horlick's and Ovaltine have always been used to lure children to have milk.

The input has a lot to do with availability. Tigers are exotic, so everyone was aware about them. The reason probably only 20% could recognise sparrows is because they are not as visible as they used to be. This is borne out by the fact that crows scored better with 70%.

This same principal applies to fruits. Kiwis, bananas, pears, pineapples were known; only 12% could spot chikoos.

There is too much concern about the influence of consumerism. Children do not think about that. If they’d see butterflies, they’d still chase them. If we want to give the butterfly a brand name and they recall that, it does not denude the wonder they feel for it.

© Farzana Versey

Business is now comic-al

“Why?” was my first instinct. Why and how can business books adapt into comics? Then it struck me that with the graphic novel gaining currency – fiction has always been considered the hallmark of imagination – showing a ‘How To’ series should be a more natural progression.

The little I have seen of graphic novels, too, does not intrude into the manner in which words are used. It is just a different way of seeing. Being personally more inclined to imagery and metaphor, the idea of a pictorial depiction may take away from the reader’s way of looking at the work. But then, if the work is different from one’s ‘area’ in a manner, then the graphics add rather than take away from what is being conveyed. It is like watching clouds and then you see flashes of the sky that has already been ‘painted’. It gives a different dimension to how we watch the cumulus disperse or words tumble.

Non-fiction of a certain kind lends itself wonderfully to such pictorial depiction. As a report states:

SmarterComics is to produce a line of comic books based on bestselling business, motivational and personal self-help titles. Among the titles coming out next month in graphic novel form are personal motivator Larry Winget's business bestseller 'Stop Whining & Get a Life', sales and marketing guru Tom Hopkins' 'How to Master the Art of Selling', performance psychologist John Eliot's 'Overachievement' and technology magazine Wired's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson's 'The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More'.

I do not read self-help books (ah, whining gives me a chance to dine and wine and, occasionally, shine), but it is a huge market and there could well be titles that I would find cumbersome to read because it just isn’t my territory but would like to know about. Of course, there is pretty much everything available on the Net, yet I would be curious about how a book like I’m Ok, You're Ok would translate in images. It is such a psychological journey and it just so happened that at around the same time I was reading Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, which I think would be an absolute delight as a comic book. I do tend to visualise and even imagine while reading non-fiction, the drier it is the more vividly I think about the characters or ‘players’ or ‘scenes’.

Unfortunately, the publisher’s targets are the “Twitter and Facebook generations” for whom the books will be “lively, visually appealing comics, for a generation of readers who want valuable information in easy to understand bits”.

I think there is no specific generation anymore on social networking sites and the need for valuable information and easy to understand bits need not be seen as dumbing down. Serious issues can be dumbed down, poetry can be dumbed down in the manner in which they are interpreted. It would be quite educative if instead of drab graphs one can watch the more complex works made accessible, rather than easy. And the difference lies in placing before us a well-laid out meal and spoon-feeding.

Even at the most basic level, if the works reach a wider readership, there would be some who might want to explore it in greater detail.

To give another example, I discovered many old folktales in their pure forms after reading comics.

Long before Indian television gave us garish images of mythological caricatures, there was the Amar Chitra Katha series of comics. As a comic book aficionado, I admit that except for the Panchtantra series, there was not much that kept me regaled. It was a simple and simplistic rendition, but so are most text books. However, what these books did was to make children conscious of our epics. Anant Pai, the founder, writer, illustrator kept at it till his death recently, because he noticed that youngsters knew more about the Greeks than Lord Rama. Of course, he did not realise that this would become a household name for entirely different reasons.

From mythology he ventured into stories of real people, the heroes. Again, I can well imagine how much more wonderful it must be to read these with quote bubbles and loud drawings for a mind that is transfixed by butterflies and in a hurry to chase them.

One should hope children grow up and grown ups can retain a wide-eyed wonder.