One of the abundant joys of childhood is a story. Not just the ones delightfully heard in a grandparent's telling or while drifting into dreams on a parent's shoulder. It also dwells in the tales little children spin, regaling in their flights of fantasy. What happens when a child has the opportunity to make their own tale come alive, unfolding in the panorama of a storybook and the adults sit, listening in wonder? A light is lit- one that gives a new generation the power to shape their own narrative. Storytelling passes on the torch of cultural memory through generations, and while most children have heard those chronicles, not all have had the opportunity to give them a voice that is their own. Voices that hail from every Goan village, with its myths and folklore, its heroes and villains, its achievements and tragedies.
One reason those voices are not as loud lies in the fact that the literature most children have read ships them far away to distant lands with exotic landscapes or magical boarding schools. So, while their imagination flowers, it doesn’t always take root in the context they flourish in- the multilingual neighbourhood chatter, the happenings in their village square, or the games they play in the grove behind their school compound. When children cannot recognise the reflection of their own lives in the books they enjoy, somewhere deep down a notion takes shape- that the most exciting stories worth telling happen in another parallel world; one in which they have no role to play.
This is why Kalakriti II matters, as it echoes the hopeful voices of children in Seraulim, Saligao, Aldona, Chimbel, Cacra, and Mala. Across 15 immersive workshops conducted by the Communicare Trust (CT) and Bookworm libraries, children not just conceptualised and wrote their own stories, but they also hand-bound their books. To widen the outreach, they included multilingual children from underserved backgrounds. Bookworm coordinator Sinead Vaz emphasised the workshops' role in reaching marginalised communities, giving children the rare opportunity to find themselves represented in books. It is an experience she herself missed as a child, making the initiative especially meaningful to her. Kalakriti II stands out as an example of effective grassroots community mentorship combining the efforts of the trust, library coordinators, and the children's parents working alongside the young authors.
Since the trust has already published books written by children in Portugal, Mozambique and Cabo Verde, I asked their manager, Nalini Elvino de Sousa, whether the stories emerging from Goa carried a distinctive cultural voice. "The stories are totally different as they reflect their environment. Take, for example, the story of Chandani, who could not cope with her studies. It centres around the role of a counsellor in her life. These are real issues they incorporated into the story." Compared with the books produced by children elsewhere, she found these children's stories grew out of their lived experience with a distinctly local imprint. Firmly rooted in everyday realities, their narratives grapple with concerns closer home—seeing their rivers polluted, the hardships faced by their community, litter left behind in their surroundings after picnics, and the struggles they encounter at school. Even the illustrations, she observed, tend to be noticeably more vibrant than those in the other international publications, where palettes are more restrained.
Interested in looking at this through a child's perspective, I asked one of the young authors, Punam Gawade, a standard ten student, about what had excited her most about the project and what she had found most difficult. Her excitement palpable, she said, “What seemed impossible at first has happened!! Now I know that I can write a book and so I will write more in the future! I have learnt that writing is not just about words; it is about our thoughts, our emotions and imagination. At first, I did not believe that I could be an author, but with guidance I am seeing that I can learn anything. At first, working together like this in a team was confusing with so many of us writing the story together, but I learnt to work with the other children, the teachers and the rest”. She went on to gleefully inform me, “You know in my story, I put in my real life enemy in what I see happening around me!”. Hearing the resonance of her newfound confidence, I wondered what fears she had needed to overcome to get to this point and asked her- was it vocabulary? She looked me straight in the eye and whispered, “I was worried- Hai konak zai? Who will be interested in reading my book?!”
Before I left the library, I asked Nalini what the children had taught her, and she shared, "to think outside the box and not to be so rigid." They had taught me something as well – that when children are trusted, they flourish. And isn’t that how a culture truly sustains? Not by simply repeating old stories, but by endowing the next generation with the confidence to tell new stories that are theirs.
