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re you one of the lucky few who have grown up with a daily
dose of bedtime stories? Wasn’t the experience refreshing? Wasn’t it rewarding?
You might have eagerly waited for the bedtime each day. Well, such is the charm
of the bedtime stories.
Imaginations run
riot with these stories. Children try to draw a mental picture of the stories
as colourful as possible. Have the tales ever become stale? No. The stories would grow more interesting with
many more twists with each narration. Different listeners visualize the same
story in different ways. Children pestering whoever stayed overnight for a
story was a common scene.
Children learn values and morals through
these mythological or folk stories. Such stories sow the seeds of the skills
like reasoning, logical thinking and sequencing in the young minds. Moreover, a strong bond and affection was
developed between the listener and the narrator.
The young
children would be with the grandmother until the mother finished household
chores. Children sleeping in the lap of the grandparents would fall into a deep
slumber with contentment, awe, shock and what not depending upon the
story! Don’t you remember fantacising
about the characters?
Unfortunately, nowadays such a tradition
is on the wane. In the nuclear families parents are engrossed in watching
television. Even the children do not lag behind. If both the parents are
employed, they would naturally be waiting to hit the sack.
Anyway that does
not mean that today’s children do not know stories. They may be knowing better
stories, thanks to television and CDs. To make up for their absence, the
working parents are ready to buy any number of expensive gadgets. But the most
needed personal touch is lost. The readymade visuals do not give any scope for
imagination. Nothing can match the bedtime stories told with fond caress or
cuddle.
On the other
hand, not all have forgotten this age-old practice. There are some indulgent
parents despite hard pressed against time. The advent of materialism and technology
notwithstanding, there are certain households that religiously follow the
tradition. Let the kind be on the rise.
