1. Rural Vs. Urban Dichotomy in Thakumar Jhuli aka Dadima ki Kahaniyaan ARPITA GHATAK FULBRIGHT FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING ASSISTANT FOR BANGLA NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

2. Questioning the Tale-Telling Tool Revisiting the oral tradition of story-telling Consisting myths, folklores, epics, Panchtantra tales, Jataka tales, Puranas, etc. Stories derived from Russia, Germany, Ireland, Denmark, etc.

3. A De-colonizing Mission? Documentation can be traced back 1870’s A pre-modern and pre- colonial tool Experimenting with/and transforming the plasticity of the children minds

4. Fairy Tales and the fantasy world  Nostalgia and a landscape of the past  An innermost refuge of the colonized child  A space charged with escapism, innocence and femininity  Food as a potential and powerful tool of cultural construction: A deep resonant indicator of cultural and ethnic identity

5. The dichotomy between Rural and Urban Rural  Alienated  Periphery  Primitive (Past)  Geography of Home  Madness or Insane (hegemonic representation)  Comfortably Self-­contained geography of Village  Parent derived identity  Original  Education in the lap of nature with practical experie nce Urban  Centred  Centre  Modern (Present)  Foreign (wilderness)  Sane or Normal (Honest)  Uncomfortable foreign controlled locale  Orphaned non­identity  Artificial  Urban school learning (syllabus oriented or bookish)

6. The dichotomy between Rural and Urban Rural  Innocence or freedom  Happy escape (for Indian urban children)  Rural space associated with an Authentic Indian Childhood  Nostalgic, romantic and sentimentalized countr yside, Exotic  Familiar (familiar fruits, food, flowers, field, dress et c.), safe, sentimental geography  Orphan or liberated child who might fly out of th e colony, nation or race,full of plebeian rural plea sures (swimming in the pond, blowing conch­ shells, drum beating, flute playing etc.) Urban  Innocence or freedom  Castrated urbanity  Modernized civilization with Colonial Childhood  Familiar or Origina  Unfamiliar (full of foreign goods), an unsafe territory  Aristocratic culture (denied of all these pleasure)