Let me admit. I love India. I am a sucker for celebrating good things about India. My day is made if I hear or read things like India has climbed 16 places in the WEF global competitiveness rankings. Or that India has built 9 million toilets in rural India to prevent open defecation. And I feel pain in my heart when I read about rapes, lynching and terrorist acts.
I celebrate Independence Day, Republic Day and Gandhi Jayanti with as much fervour as Diwali. Wanting to instil the same values in my children, I was looking at making 2nd October meaningful for them. I googled yesterday for videos on Gandhi and was put to sleep by the overtly adulatory and boringly long documentaries that were not engaging for a 5 or 7 year old.
So I thought of making a game or a fun activity for my kids. Last night, I told them: Tomorrow, when you wake up, we'll have a treasure hunt on Gandhi!They suddenly had a twinkle in their eye and promptly went to bed waiting for the next day. (Side note: To have something to wake up to, is a great recipe for children to go to bed on time).
In the morning, I woke up long after Zoya and Anay. They seemed to have forgotten about the treasure hunt. And today could have passed like any other holiday without them appreciating why there was a holiday in the first place! But I somehow put aside my long weekend induced lethargy and made the treasure hunt clues.
When I reminded them about the treasure hunt, Zoya and Anay jumped with joy. Their excitement was palpable at the prospect of a treasure hunt. I think there is something inherently attractive about solving clues. The seduction of the unknown and the journey of solving a puzzle fire our neurons in amazing ways.
The game was simple. You get a clue of a location. That location has a chit carrying an aspect of Gandhi's life and a clue for the next location. You research on the aspect of Gandhi's life and record it. Then you solve the clue to get to the next location. Here are the location clues and aspects of Gandhi for Zoya:
And here are the ones for Anay:
The kids had a blast looking for locations, asking their mother about Kasturba Gandhi, Satyagraha and Dandi March and when she was not able to provide satisfactory answers, googling to find more! At the end they had some inkling of the person who played a large part in getting us independence. This is what both of them recorded:
The icing on the cake was when they in turn wanted to make clues for us. When children extend their learning to create learning paths for others, it shows that they have not only learnt something but also learnt how to think. The latter is actually more valuable than the former!
In the end, I was happy we made Gandhi fun. And I think I'll do something to make Diwali fun too, esp. because we are not going to be bursting firecrackers or gambling!
