Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest |

Past perfect

On a hot, flat and huge boulder atop the hills in Kidaripatti village, 23 kms North of Madurai, sat a chattering crowd of 100-plus Class VI to IX students .

Wide eyed and absolutely enthralled by the scenery around, history perhaps never evoked such curiosity as it did in them on this particular Sunday morning.

The youthful group enthusiastically climbed up the 150 metres elevation, as part of a special heritage walk organised by The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Madurai.

En route, art historian K. T. Gandhirajan doled out information that initiated the group of young learners into the ancient history of their city.

That the huge natural cavern must have been a winter shelter for pre-historic hunter-gatherers and later for the Jain monks. That the paintings looked like neolithic-style rock art, with 13 images visible and painted in red ochre, perhaps drawn 5000 years ago.

The 20 stone beds with pillows, Vattezhuthu and Tamil Brahmi inscriptions from the Ist Century B.C. That this was an ideal Jain cave with a drip ledge on its forehead to avoid rain water leakage into the cave. A drain carved out in the rock floor to enable rain water to flow into the rock pool indicated the existence of rain water harvesting Centuries ago.

That Kidaripatti is a key archaeological site around Madurai was till hitherto unknown to many of these students. Some who may have read about it in their school work sheets could barely recall their classroom lecture. But this one outing changed it all. And that served the very purpose of INTACH’s exercise and the mission to rope in young minds to prevent our art and culture, history and heritage from receding into oblivion.

Teaching and learning of history in schools should aim at making the past seem real. But mostly it remains an untouchable abstraction held in adult memories or hollow textbook passages and seems less focussed on building definitive knowledge.

INTACH Madurai is now trying to reverse the situation by helping students achieve a purpose of building insights not only into contemporary events but also the old and ancient heritage of the city.

“The idea is to recreate Madurai’s 2,700 years old glory by making our children aware of our long and almost unbroken history which makes Tamizhagam the most ancient classical living organisation in the world today,” says Sharmila Ganesan, one of the six coordinators for the project.

With the launch of these Heritage Clubs, INTACH Madurai has made a conscious effort to evoke the interest of the young in the past. Already 11 schools with 30 students and three teachers each have enrolled for heritage club membership. Rajesh Kanna, another coordinator, says, “We tend to take history for granted. We want to create an awareness, motivate and encourage the children to respect, appreciate, protect and gain knowledge in the areas of history, archaeology, heritage all around Madurai.” The idea will be achieved through 40-odd listed projects that will help to recognise and place in historical context either important persons, monuments and events of the past and introduce and gradually build understanding of time and chronology.

Through multi-pronged approach and team-work, the heritage club project is all set to recall native board games, grandparent’s narratives, trade and economy through the ages, Jainism, folk dances and ancient places of worship among other things.

The member schools are expected to finish at least three projects each before the year end.

Student members will be encouraged to take pride in their heritage and acquire a determination to want to, “value and preserve the rich heritage and protect and improve the natural environment”. An erudite and passionate scholar of history who retired from Madurai Kamaraj University, Prof. R.Venkataraman, and eminent archaeologist, Dr.S.Suresh are the key resource persons along with Mr.Gandhirajan.

Two well illustrated history books authored by Dr.Suresh, who is also the convener of INTACH, Chennai, makes a good reference matter for all the Heritage Club members.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail