How many people are aware that Kerala, one of the two states on the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent was, in 1991, officially declared by the United Nations to be the world's only 100% literate state? This was as a result of a massive effort over a period of three years by volunteer teachers crisscrossing the countryside to track down over 150 000 illiterates and conducting classes anywhere they could: in cowsheds, the open air, and courtyards. The result of this achievement is that, today, Kerala has largely avoided many of the social ills, such as excessive population growth, that many of us identify in our minds with India.
Why would literacy alone have such a remarkable impact where many other programs targeted at specific problems have failed? Is it not because it is from literature - stories - that, beyond the experiences of ourselves and those around us, we learn so much about life, and the world beyond us? And is it not that through the best of literature, - the best stories - especially those which have survived and had a life of their own through the ages, that we find the treasure of 'the experience of many' distilled into practical wisdom for our daily lives?
Today, in our minds, 'literature' is tied to 'literacy'. But the true value of literature is not the form in which it is recorded, but the content of the stories which it tells. And before reading and writing became such an essential tool for navigating modern life, the source of that literature was the 'Story teller'. No country on earth has such a rich living treasure of epics, myths, and stories filled with symbolic wisdom, than India. Just as today the teachers of literacy crisscrossed the rural country side, so, in former times, Story Tellers crisscrossed the countryside to bring the great literature of India to its people. Huge epics such as told in the 100 000 stanzas of the Mahabharata or the 24 000 stanzas of the Ramayana and which take many, many days in the telling, incorporate vast tracts of practical and spiritual wisdom.
The Gods, Goddesses, heroes and heroines, demons and demonesses, that populate this literature, from the ultimate unknowable source of everything, Mahashakti, through Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and down to the many lesser gods, demons and legendary figures, are personifications of the universal energies, from those which are beyond our ability to perceive, through to those that appear and influence us in our most mundane of daily activities.
In addition to the oral version of this literature, episodes of the epic history, are depicted in art - carved into rock, painted in friezes on the walls of temples, and depicted in statuary on the enormous towers that form part of sacred complexes. Nowhere is this better to be seen, and appreciated than in the temple and other complexes of Southern India - Tamil Nadu and Kerala. When a gifted story teller tells the story behind the art, the figures and events depicted come alive before you and you understand why they have held enthralled and enriched the lives of thousands of generations, why they are as fresh and alive today as when they were first told. And you will be enchanted.
Both Carol and I, and I am sure all those who accompanied us, regard the Journey that we took last year through Tamil Nadu and Kerala, in the company of Sanjay, - the master story teller - as one of the highlights of our lives. That is why we could not do other than offer it to be shared by others this year.
Join us - your life will be enriched.
Carol and Mark
Magical Journey & Willka T'ika
