How Fair Is It To Feed A Child With Fairy Tales And Fantasy Stories?

Remember the little Ranbir in Tamasha and how he used to collect coins to go and listen to stories from a story teller? Little Ved took coins from his grandmother quite often and used them to pay up to the storyteller who sat under a tree and changed the story every time the kid came. While the storyteller had to be reminded of the story line every time, little Ved got completely immersed in his narration and thought that all that happened to the characters will happen to him. He started finding those characters in real life people he would spot on the streets of Shimla. There came a point of time when he got frustrated and questioned Piyush Mishra (the storyteller) that why were things happening the way they were in the story! The child had taken the story too literally! Even at the end of the movie, Ranbir goes and meets him to know the end of the story, where he shouts at Ved saying that his story is in his own hands, not in the mind of the storyteller! 

We saw a similar thing happening in Sony’s new show Pehredaar Piya Ki, where the child is told a fairy tale kind of story by his KaKi Maa Sa. Even when she’s not around, he carries a recorded version of the story which is about a Rajkumar finding a Pari whom he saves from a bear. The Pari is breathtakingly beautiful and the prince wants to marry her. Little Ratan meets Diya and he assumes that she’s the Pari from the story that Kaki Maa Sa told him. He gets really fascinated by her beauty and follows her around the house with a Polaroid camera in his hands, taking pictures of Diya without her knowledge.

He then saves her from a cockroach as he imagines that he’s saving her from a bear and next he announces his love for her. Ratan tells his family that he wants to marry Diya and everyone takes the child lightly. Even Diya laughs off saying that she’s too big and he’s too small both in size and age to marry each other.

But the point here is that these stories leave a huge impact on kids. As kids who grow in Indian households with protective parents and grandparents, some time or the other many of us have been brought up listening to these fairy tales and stories. The least that happens is that mothers tell their children that there will be a day when a ‘Rajkumar’ or a ‘Pari’ will come into their lives and marry them. Pehredaar Piya Ki’s Ratan is a classic example of how stories can change the entire thought process and upbringing of a child. The show is pitched as fiction by the makers, but somewhat it shows us a glimpse of our own reality.

Have you ever come across anyone who really believes in fairy tales? Tell us in your comments.