Hyderabad, Sept. 18 -- "By the time she had grown sharper,., she found in her mind a collection of images and echoes to which meanings were attachable- images and echoes kept for her in the childish dusk, the dim closet, the high drawers, like games she wasn't big enough to play."

Henry James's 1850s novel What Maisie Knew clawed into and dug out the idea that children are in possession of awareness; be it about the world around them or their own selves. This idea, often finds itself on shaky grounds if one were to consider and buy into how celebrated the idea of innocence is.

To ascribe innocence chiefly to children is to devalue and abuse the fact that children often bear witness to a harshness in the world which stays etched in their...