On a summer evening, a group of kids gather under the starry sky to play peek-a-boo with boothams. The lights are dimmed as the chatter settles down and a pair of boothams with their faces painted in white and red sneak in from behind the pillar. One of the phantoms suddenly falls and shrieks in pain. “Ayyo! My stomach is aching,” he cries, rolling on the floor, still holding on to the packets of Kurkure and Lays. “I told you not to eat junk food,” the other ghost laughs hysterically, unleashes a magic spell and punches the ailing bootham in the stomach. The inflated balloon inside bursts and the children can’t control their laughter and claps.
“Story telling is a great way to get closer to children. It’s a journey that takes them to a different world far from the adversities of reality, where one can achieve whatever they want. I wanted to contribute something towards primary education at grassroots level and found story telling as a powerful tool,” says Boopathi Raj, student of BA Tamil, Senthamizh College. Boopathi and his friend Vignesh who played boothams at the story telling session organised at Littles Trust – A Centre for Children, recently, are passionate story tellers. They are part of Kathai Solrom Vanga , a team of 10 young college goers and professionals travelling across the State, spreading and searching stories on the go. “Earlier, we used to simply narrate stories, but now we have turned into komalis – acting, miming, singing and dancing stories,” says Boopathi. “I tell stories related to nature, agriculture, animals and native stories like Nattupura kathaigal, nadodi kathaikal and Karisal kaatu kathaigal by folklorist Ki. Rajanarayanan.”
Story telling seems to have become an integral part of summer camps. “Story telling has taken a social space these days as the traditional story-tellers in families, the grand-old thathas and paatis have become a rarity. We have dismissed and set aside stories and now there’s a pressing need to introduce children to stories, books and characters,” says Surya Preethy of Turning Point Book Shop, which organised a story session for kids last week. “Story telling opens up numerous ideas for kids, lends a vent for their imagination and creativity. Book shops and libraries in metro cities conduct regular sessions. I plan to make Turning Point into a space for books and stories.”
K.K. Uma Devi, a librarian-cum-story teller, says, “Story telling is a great way to inculcate reading habit among children. By way of listening, the love for reading is created. I also give them activities related to the story they hear. It’s amazing to see how kids give the characters a shape and form of their own and some even write on their favourites characters. Role plays and mono-acts are other story-based activities.”
Listening to stories is very much like reading a book as it’s an open canvas where your mind is left free and wild, says Parvatha Varthini, Managing Trustee of Littles Trust. “With stories, their world becomes big and their creativity has no bounds. They would take in the morals easily in the form a story than as plain bullet-point advice.”
“The real fun is when children tell stories,” she adds. “The stories they come up with are really wonderful. Children tend to tell stories inspired from their own lives and backgrounds, day-to-day happenings. Kids from the marginalised and underprivileged communities take along their cultural aspects in their stories.
For instance, the Valayar community children will have snakes, rats, frog, cats and rabbits as characters in their tales and stories by the Dalit kids will have traces of social discrimination they face. One can notice things that have impacted them, in their stories.”
She recalls a story by a small kid at the centre. “It was a simple story where the earth rejects the thunderous call of the dark clouds as it hates the black colour of the clouds. Later, reflecting on the failure of rains, the earth makes up its mind and invites the dark clouds for a downpour.” “The story shows us how colour discrimination has impacted the child. Story telling is a mutual learning process.”
Kathai solli Satish, a full-time story teller from Tirupur, feels, stories need not have morals as a necessity. “Story telling itself is an interactive relationship-building exercise. As a theatre artist, I have been telling stories to children up to 14 years of age, for the past eight years,” he says. “I don’t go with planned stories in my mind. I come up with tales on the spot, involving things and happenings in the immediate surroundings. Kids tend to beautifully string up personal experiences into stories, opening a dialogue within oneself and among the participants.”
