The National Mission for Manuscripts seeks to bring the several facets of knowledge contained in manuscripts to the public through lectures, seminars, publications and specially designed programmes for schoolchildren and university students. Documenting manuscripts, promoting research and especially access to the written heritage of India are integral parts of the Mission’s activities. In this connection the Mission finds it important to target school children, in order to promote an awareness and engagement with manuscripts

Children’s Educational Academy established 25 years ago as Sri.M.Vedakumar, its Chairman. The academy’s activities encourage children to develop their latent talents and become allround personalities by participating in physical and mental activities aimed at promoting development of their special talents and skills, which enables them to become productive and useful citizens as they grow up

In 2005, NMM had organized a series of programmes for school children in Delhi, to bring alive the written word. It was an experimental programme called Living Words, a 45 minutes performance in Hindi called Laghu Mahabharata. This year, a similar programme at a more extensive scale was organized in Andhra Pradesh. In as many as 11 districts of the State, theatre-cum-workshops for the school children were organized between 5-20 October. 126 schools and 1600 children participated in this programme, which brought together folk and textual traditions in the same platform for the first time, with the particular purpose of reaching out to the school children.

The programme in Andhra Pradesh integrated the live tradition of leather and wooden puppets, vibrant music, folk tales featuring the folk story from Vijayanagara Kingdom, that of King Krishna Devaraya and Tenali Raman. It also had two contemporary episodes involving school children. The theme centred on the tradition of hand-written texts, their importance, their neglect in the present century and the need to preserve them as repositories of knowledge. The characters in the play portrayed the importance of manuscripts and also its preservation. Put in simple, lucid language and integrated with lively performance, the story was well-received and evoked interest and enthusiasm in the children

In Andhra Pradesh, where puppetry is extremely popular, puppets known as “Tholu Bolumma” meaning leather puppets in bright colours are used extensively. Also significantly enough, the puppetry shows showcased the manner in which oral traditions got transcribed into the textual form. As a potent performing medium, puppetry performance became a powerful device to the Mission’s idea of connecting with the minds of the young students

The puppetry performance was by the troupe of M. Jaganatham from Warrangal District. The programme was conducted in Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Warrangal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Medak, Kurnool, Mahboobnagar, Nalgonda, Khammam and Machilipatnam. The first Theater cum Workshop was launched in Hyderabad on 6th October, 2006 by Smt. N. Rajyalaxmi, Hon’ble Minister for school education, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh along with Shri R. V. Chandravadan, IAS, Dist.,Collector, Hyderabad, Shri Shravan Kumar, IAS (Retd.,), Convenor, INTACH AP Chapter, Dr. J. Kedareshwari, Director, State Archeological Museum, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh and Prof. J. Thirumal Rao, Director, A.P. Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research centre, Sri.M.Vedakumar, Director, Children’s Educational Academy, Hyderabad and Ms.Rashmi Singh, Co-ordinator (Outreach), NMM, New Delhi
The five-hour programme was crafted out in the form of interactive sessions with resource persons, through theatre and puppetry groups and exhibition of Manuscripts. The participating students were exposed to the various aspects of recognizing, preserving and understanding the importance of the Manuscripts

In the workshops, the interest generated among kids was clearly visible. It was a great experience for them to see the whole world opening in front of them in the form of manuscripts. The scripts and symbols made them curious to know about the past and in its presence in the form of manuscripts. They came up with questions like how palm leaves were used for writing in the past and what kind of pen and ink were used. They were curious about the evolution of symbols and scripts, for instance how Brahmi evolves in seven stages and finally becomes Telugu