Travelogues to introduce kids to Indian religions, faiths

Bhakti Mathur wanted to share with her sons fascinating stories from Indian mythology when she came up with the idea of her popular "Amma, Tell me" series and now she has penned the first of the "Amma, Take Me" books to tell children about important religious places.
In "Amma, Take Me to the Golden Temple", published by Puffin India, she tells about the holy shrine of the Sikhs in Amritsar.
"Written as a travelogue of sorts, the series touches upon our major religions, their history and their mythology through the conversations of a mother and her two children as they visit India's important places of worship," she says.

"The books are full of engaging stories and I've made every attempt to make sure they are 'fun' and 'engaging' and never ever 'preachy'," Hong Kong-based Mathur told PTI.
A lot of research went into the writing.
"I realised how little I knew about the history of this wonderful monument (Golden Temple) and how limited my knowledge was about the Sikh history and the beauty of the teachings central to it. There is a plethora of books on Sikh history and the Golden Temple and I referred to some of them," she says.

According to the author, the only way to get a sense of the place is by visiting it and spending some time there. Illustrations are an important part of Mathur's stories. The illustrator for the "Amma, Take Me" series is Priyankar Gupta.

"Illustrations are the first thing that attracts a child to the book. If they like the illustrations, they will read the book. For children who haven't begun reading as yet, illustrations become even more important as they read the book in pictures," she says.
Telling about the motivation for writing the "Amma, Tell Me", she says, "It was December 2010 and Holi was round the corner. I was looking for a good book to explain the festival to my older son who was two years old then."
But she found that there were "no resources that were simple to understand and that captured the rich imagery of mythological India that is such an integral part of these stories for me".

So Mathur went ahead and started writing the stories in a style that she thought kids find fun and non-preachy and collaborated on the illustrations to bring out the imagery that she wanted her stories to convey.
"I set up my own publishing company and called it 'Anjana Publishing' (Anjana being the mother of my favourite God, the monkey God Hanuman)," she says.
Penguin came up with the idea for the "Amma, Take Me" series.
"The series is designed and written for older children and is therefore a natural evolution for me not only as a writer, but also as a mother who has been dealing with questions about different religions and their places of worship as they have become part of my children's school curriculum," she says.

Mathur worked as a banker for 22 years and left the industry two months ago to spend more time with her children. She has no plans, however, to write for adults as of now. "I would like to follow my kids and write for their age group, so in a few years I might be writing for adults.