On the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, kids and a chidren’s writer remembered the Father of Nation in a unique way.
October 2, this year, an audio-visual interactive session called ‘Cat in the Hat’ was held at Full Circle Book Store on Chamiers Road, R.A.Puram.
It was all about Mahatma Gandhi, presented by the acclaimed children’s writer Mrs. Sandhya Rao, who is also the editor at Tulika, a children’s publishing company. Her growing up years were filled with stories of Gandhiji, narrated by her mother and grandparents who had met the father of the nation in person, she said.
All these stories inspired her to author the following books in an interesting way – The Dandi March, Picture Gandhi and My Gandhi Scrapbook.
The Dandi March is a read and color book about the salt march which played an important role in Indian independence. Picture Gandhi is a picture book about the life of Gandhi and My Gandhi Scrapbook is full of photographs and drawings about Gandhi.
“Whatever pictures that could not be put in the biography, I fit into the scrapbook” says the author laughingly. There were many children at this interactive session who were eager to learn more about Gandhi. All of them enjoyed the way she talked about Gandhi.
She told many unusual facts about Gandhi which no one knew. Plus loads of pictures of him were shown.
Some are – Gandhiji was a terrible cook-he made neem leaves chutney, dried wheat porridge and coffee
He was stylish during his youth period, especially wearing hats
He was afraid of the dark until he was thrown out off the train in South Africa
He was a right handed person but taught himself to become ambidextrous; Believe it or not his handwriting with his left hand was neater than the right hand.
Every Monday for his entire life he observed silence.
All the children enjoyed the session immensely. To know more about Gandhi and to get involved in the virtual scrapbook of Gandhi log onto www.zapzany.com
or go to – http://www.ourgandhiscrapbook.blogspot.com