“Whenever I mention I am having a storytelling session, the response is usually, ‘Oh. I will bring my kid along’! But I don’t want to tell your kids stories; I want to tell them to adults,” says Chetan Shetty who is coming to town to do just that — tell a story to grown ups.
“I enjoy the challenge of taking a complex piece of literature and editing it down to a manageable format. You have to remove a lot of stuff and present just one or two threads of it. And I believe there are stories for grown ups,” says Chetan. Storytelling traditions exist everywhere in our country, he says, and gives the example of Yakshagana. “Yakshagana is meant for adults. It deals in dark themes and is serious. But not so in English, where storytelling is limited to fairy tales or bedtime stories for kids.”
The beginning
Chetan’s storytelling passion grew out of his love for literature and theatre. He participated in plays in his spare time and says he is particularly proud of his role as Sancho Panza in Man of La Mancha ! “But it was becoming too time consuming. So much effort goes into just that one performance.” He says storytelling made a lot more sense to him, as he could prepare by himself, and best of all interact with the audience. “I love the hunkara in story telling. You need someone to give you a hun in response. This is what I enjoy best in a story-telling. The instant connection. A playwright or a filmmaker won’t ever get that.”
That is something a Sanjay Leela Bhansali will never enjoy, laughs Chetan. “He does not get a chance to discuss his story with his audience. I do.” Storytelling generates the best discussions, believes Chetan, and nothing gives him a greater high than having people fighting each other over some character or debating the issue central to the story.
About The Storytellers
Chetan describes The Storytellers as a loose group of 12-15 people that told its first story somewhere in 2013. “We meet almost every weekend.” They also pick literature and build an event around it, like the time they told stories from Rafiq Schami’s Damascus Nights, and a Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz. At the moment they are working on Chouboli by Vijaydan Detha. “We have broken it up into episodes and it is a kind of a serial storytelling where five or six of us tell a different story. It gives the audience to experience the different styles of story telling too.”
- I read Nagamandala long before I was even remotely interested in storytelling. But it stayed in my mind. It talks to me at so many levels. It is such a powerful piece of literature.
- I like stories that deal with the man-woman relationship without being too didactic about it. Of course, I have had to edit a lot of the play into a story format and present just one thread of it. That is all I can do in a limited time. Nagamandala is such a multi-threaded work. I would be very embarrassed if Girish Karnad was ever in the audience!
- I prefer to tell this story when I have a full hour or more. It is not a story that you can just hear and go away. It leaves you with a lot of questions. As a storyteller, I only raise questions; it is not my responsibility to provide the answers. That the audience has to come up with.
Chetan says The Storytellers prefer ‘Sofa Storytelling’, which, he explains, is a session with a small group of not more than 20 or so people. “We also go to people’s home and tell stories. That can be the dinner conversation. We pick a story that touches us or talks to us and share that. It could be from literature, folk tales, anything... the idea is to bring literature out of the books. I enjoy telling stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chugtai, Girish Karnad ... stories that are simple yet powerful. Lately, says Chetan, he is ferreting out biographies of real people and is currently hooked by the life and times of Colonel Sanders of KFC!
Preparation
Chetan finds it impossible to practise in front of the mirror but says he writes out the story the way he wants to tell it. “I always note down the minor details. Stories are made up of minor details. The first time I really say it aloud is to the people in front of me. The moment there is an audience, you bounce off their energy. You are talking to someone and you get eloquent. After the first time, I later add or trim it.”
His inspiration to take to this form of performance art came to him a good 10 years before he actually told a story in public. “It was a performance of Ek Shaam Ismat Aapa ke naam by Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah where Naseerudeen Shah performed Chugtai’s Gharwali . I was so enamoured by his performance that I told my wife ‘I want to do this one day’.” And in fact the first story I told was Gharwali ! Of course, it is a little risqué and, therefore, doesn’t suit every audience. I reserve it for audiences who will get it.”
- As part of its Celebrating Conservation initiative, Zoo Outreach Organisation (ZOO), in association with Yellow Train School, presents Nagamandala, a storytelling performance of Girish Karnad’s famous play by Pune-based Chetan Shetty.
- This will be followed by an interaction and a discussion on snakes. The performance will be in English and the event is only for adults.
- On March 28, 6.30 to 8.00 pm at Yellow Train Garden Campus, 641 Trichy Road, India Near Central Studio Bus Stop
- Call 9994374319 or 8300591989 or visit https://bit.ly/2CBXydi to register
Chetan is very grateful to Payal Bhojwani for having invited him to Coimbatore to perform at Yellow Train. “I have told stories in many other places. But that is usually when I travel there on work. This is the first time I have actually been invited to a place to tell a story. It makes me feel very important.”
