Ponniyin Selvan Varalaatru Peravai

Dear all,

I just want to share my personal experience in this.

My daughter, who is 17 now, learnt to recite Thirupavai by 5 years
and could enjoy the visit to temples.

By 8 years, she could recite 3 chapters of Bhagvad Gita and knew
Ramayana and Mahabharata and all the small characters of these
stories also.

I bought a CD of Nile's passage to Egypt - discovery channel
production - which she loved and could repeat every word of that CD
in the same tone - this was when she was around 9, and her love to
Egypt continues now.

By 13 years she knew the broad outline on India's freedom struggle
(though she did not have it as part of her syllabus by then) and
picked up a big fat book on this topic during our outing to a book
shop in her 8th std. vacation.

I took her to Panchalamkurichi, Bharathiyar Manimandapam, and
introduced her to Katta Bommu and Subramanya Bharathiyar.

When she was 8 years, Harry Potter came and she just loved it. Even
I liked it. We used to fight with each other when the next book came
to read it first.

Her interest in Harry's escapades did not diminish her interest in
the antiques of Hanuman or Bheema!

When her friends who could get 100 in Maths take pride in saying
that history is boring and they dont like it, she used to argue with
them ( some times get into major fights.. as that age demands) when
somebody calls history - a waste of time - dead subject - or
anything like that.

After 10th std., she has joined an international residential school
to do IB. She is the only student in her class to opt for history as
a subject for standard level. She had teacher for 6 months, and for
the past 1 year, she is doing the subject herself, as the teacher
has left and the school is not able to find a good IB trained
teacher for history. I understand, that the earlier teacher was also
a major in economics, but was filling the post, as she had interest
in the subject and took training. Now, she will be giving exam with
no guidance or advice from a trained teacher. That is the situation
now. There are no teachers to teach history and hence, school has
stopped offering that as an option from the next batch!!

Another twist to this story is IB has European history only. Though,
they encourage students to take up any part of Indian history for
their projects, it is not part of the syllabus. Again, Indian
history of last 300 years is alone accepted for projects, as they
say, that there is no evidence conclusive for period beyond 300
years.

Forgot to add, she knows all the characters of PS and SS - though
she cannot read Tamil. In fact, whenever I read a story book, I have
to tell her the story. Her favourite book is Alchemist and her
favourite author is Leon Uris.

I am saying this to show that interest in English and english
authors dont make someone not love our culture, history and
tradition. Everything should be inclusive - not exclusive.