Making history tangible to children through curated walks

In December last year I was reading a book on stepwells of India, around the same time I had a group of rambunctious teens in the house. To save myself from hearing K-Pop Demon Hunters’ Golden for the nth time, I decided to sit them all down and talk about the fast-vanishing sites. Within minutes, I knew this was a lost task as I attempted to evoke stories of dynasties behind some of the most iconic baolis and vavs in the country. I even attempted to link these sites to modern-day challenges like groundwater depletion and water scarcity, but I was met with glazed looks.

Things started to look up earlier this year, when during a visit to Ahmedabad, I dragged my daughter along for a day-long trip to Patan to see the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Rani ki Vav, or the 11th century-Queen’s Stepwell. I clearly remember the exact moment when wary sighs turned to excited gasps. When we arrived, all we could see were manicured gardens populated by school kids and langurs. A few steps later, the vav revealed itself in all its glory, complete with its intricate sculptures and lattices.

From then on, my daughter was like a person on a mission, taking photos, observing architectural details, sitting on the steps to sketch likenesses of sculptures, and so on and so forth. Since then, we have been on a bit of a stepwell hunt, visiting Adalaj near Gandhinagar, Agrasen ki Baoli in Delhi, and more, soaking in stories of tragic love stories, sordid politics and urban legends. These trips have led to discussions on baolis as community spaces, and the pressing need to restore them back to life.

As a parent, I have realised it is not enough to be history buff yourself, you need to figure out ways of making the past tangible and accessible. And it has taken a while for me to arrive at some kind of an effective approach that involves less talking and is more experiencing. We all have questions about who we are and how we arrived at this point. There are so many histories that we carry within us, and countless invisibilised ones that whisper around us. Sadly, around middle school, kids start losing the interest in making these connections, focusing solely on dates and timelines to be memorised, repeated in tests and then forgotten.

The fault, more often than not, lies with us adults for making history a static object, to be viewed from a distance, but not felt or touched. However, day after day, you have news on archaeological discoveries, often erasing previously-held views of the past or adding new layers to it. Take, for instance, the recent one on the inscriptions in Tamil-Brahmi, Sanskrit and Prakrit found across six tombs in Egypt’s Theban Necropolis. Identified by Charlotte Schmid of the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) and Ingo Strauch of the University of Lausanne, this sheds new light on the nature of trade links between south Asia and the rest of the world. These studies can become spring boards for fascinating discussions on migration, cultural exchange and current trade policies in a more engaging way.

Or, take the contested sites like Keezhadi in Tamil Nadu, which can lead to conversations around the role of archaeologists in interpreting findings—and how this is linked to current notions of nationalism and identity. Journalist Sowmiya Ashoka’s The Dig becomes a good reference for parents to broach such topics. This would be a good reference point for parents to take with them on trips to sites with a high density of archaeological sites to see how a historical puzzle is pieced together.

Curated walks are also great ways of bridging the gap between the past and the present. Author-public historian Eric Chopra, the founder of Itihasology—an educational platform based on Indian history—grew up on a hearty dose of Horrible Histories books, Amar Chitra Katha comics, documentaries on ancient civilisations and an exoticised version of an archaeologist in Indiana Jones films. “All of us grow up with a sense of curiosity about the past. However, that is not satiated when you open a school text book or if you don’t have the good fortune of getting an animated history teacher,” says Chopra, who started working in the realm of public history right after Grade 12 to bring a visual and imaginative approach to the past.

To this end, he started walks at the National Museum and the monuments of Delhi 2019 onwards. Today when he conducts walks based on his recent book, Ghosted: Delhi’s Haunted Monuments, it appeals to the child-like imagination in both adults and kids. There are a lot of squeals when he talks about abandoned sites or paranormal tales lurking behind heritage structures in the city. However, even today, it is the Harappan walk at the National Museum that elicits the maximum number of questions from children. Even though they have seen an image of the Dancing Girl from Mohenjo-daro in textbooks, when they come across the artefact in real life, they all marvel at the fact that it is so tiny. “They ask if it is so tiny, why is it so important? And then we get into how bronze was a difficult material to work with. Then there is the Rakhigarhi skeleton of a woman buried with a range of objects that leads to questions on fashion and afterlife. And once they realise the Indus Valley Civilisation script has not been deciphered, there is a zeal among them to be the first to crack it” says Chopra.

At Immersive Trails, a sustainable travel platform based out of Kolkata, it is the World War II walk through the city that generates a lot of curiosity among young participants. Chelsea McGill, co-founder of the platform, and curator of the walk, recalls one boy making a lot of connections between what he was seeing and what he had learnt in school. The city acquires a different feel when stories of Japanese bombings and American troops come to life. The walk also covers aspects of the Bengal famine of 1943. “A key aspect of storytelling around history is to bring people to a location where something momentous had happened, where remnants of the past are still visible. The narrative shows figures from the past as real people with complexities and highlights their personal desires, ambitions and tragedies,” explains McGill.

In Mumbai, Devpriya Bihani brings a unique approach to storytelling by amalgamating dance and history. She started her platform, One of a Kind, in 2021. She realised that kids were not able to visualise what they were learning in the classroom. Today, she conducts heritage hunts, museum walks and programmes that encapsulate dance and heritage. “I am also an Odissi dancer. So, I use the body as a medium to talk about civilisations and heritage. I have figured over time that children find that very interesting,” she says. In May, this year, Devpriya will be conducting a workshop, You Can be Superhero too, allowing kids to discover mythological characters and linking their attributes to their everyday situations. For the recently-concluded Kala Ghoda Festival this year, she curated a storytelling performance with Siddhi Waikar around the Harappan civilization based on the exhibition, Networks of the Past, at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya. She is now adapting that performance at schools across the city. Similar performances have been conducted around the histories of Ellora, Elephanta and Kanheri caves.

Devpriya has also started A to Z walks in the city in collaboration with Anita Yewale, a museum docent or trained volunteer educator. As part of this, the duo began with an Art Deco clue hunt in November around the Oval maidan, where kids were encouraged to scout for frozen fountain and sunburst designs. A walk through Chor Bazaar leads to interesting narratives about vintage objects.

While walks can set you and your family on an immersive journey into history, you can take the next step by curating your own walks and tours based on books such as A to Z of Indian History, The People of the Indus, In search of Lost Cities, Tony Joseph’s excellent Ancient Indians, and more. Why limit your imagination!

Raising Parents is a monthly column about art and culture ideas to inspire both children and adults.