CHENNAI: A love for history and a fascination for stories from the past led her to writing history books for children. Pavithra Srinivasan, author and journalist, talks to CE about her latest book Yester Tales and more.
“I was only 12 when my mother introduced me to Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan, and that changed my outlook towards history forever,” says Pavithra.
Although she started out writing general fiction (and still does, on occasion), historical fiction soon became an obsession. “I also realised that while there were a lot of novels — short-stories were at a premium.”
The author, who has interacted with a lot of children during the last couple of years, feels that many kids find history extremely boring. “I wanted to share my happiness I got from reading history books with others. I would take dates, years, and uninteresting bare-bone info and combine them into a story,”
she adds.
Writing books on history is a challenge of a different kind, as you cannot get historical facts wrong, and that involves a lot of painstaking research. Pavithra had to face numerous hurdles every time she wrote a chapter on history. “There are stories that require extensive research for which I need at least a month. But in case of Yester Tales, I wrote individual stories first and the research took me barely a week.”
She believes that it is vital we know our history.
“We are what we were. Without our past, we cannot shape our present or future. It’s up to us to preserve these records,” she points out, and she believes that history is all around us and we have to choose to see it or not. “Our families, their lives, place we live in, our food and pretty much everything has a history to it. Yet, a lot of misconceptions surround studying history in our country,” she adds. “People choose BA History only if they don’t get their desired course. That’s unfortunate. I studied commerce, but I would have loved to study history. But my parents felt, like many others in India believed that it wouldn’t help me earn a living. But I managed to prove them wrong,” she grins.
Pavithra credits her love for reading to her mother who introduced her to the “wonderful world of books. She would often take me to small lending libraries,” she says. “Ponniyin Selvan opened the world of history for me and of course, I have to mention O’Henry, my short-story guru, who taught me the amazing art of twist-endings,” she smiles. “I have realised that I can’t stand pretentious, pompous writing that’s full of complicated words but no meaning. Honesty may be brutal, but it’s a wonderful thing in the written word.”