The Tribe of Tellers trained in the art of storytelling by Ever After Learning was a group of bright children from 8 to 12 years of age. They regaled the audience with stories, delivered with stunning clarity, at a recently-held event at Paradigm Shift, Koramanagala.
Deeptha Vivekanand and Nisha Abdulla, founders of Ever After Learning, encouraged the children from behind the scenes. “To stand up alone when you are seven-and-a-half is quite a big deal,” says Deeptha. The duo also conducted a workshop at Jagriti Theatre’s Summer Carnival. They intend to make Tribe of Tellers perform at various venues in Bangalore all year round. “The intention is to create a troupe of children storytellers,” says Deeptha.
Deeptha’s and Nisha’s passion for storytelling is evident from the work they put into their projects, ranging from research to polishing their storytelling skills. “Storytelling happened to me as an extension to what I was doing at work,” explains Deeptha. “I worked as a corporate trainer, and storytelling was a necessary skill.”
Deeptha worked for six years with corporates in the training and development function. In 2009, she quit her job to take up storytelling full-time, performing and conducting workshops.
“I got caught up in the hum-drum of life. So there came a time when I had to take a step back, and decide that this is what I wanted to do. There is so much emotional power in stories that I wanted to delve deep into them.”
She was trained by internationally-renowned storytellers such as Margaret Read McDonald. “I did a couple of courses and attended the Singapore Storytelling Festival in 2010. I also got in touch with people in the storytelling community,” says Deeptha, who is the founder of Bangalore Storytelling Society and is currently its president.
Nisha, on the other hand, has a background in theatre, which is evident from the expressive way she tells stories. “I am also a writer,” says Nisha. “I was the storyteller in my family and in my extended family. I quit my job in 2013 and did some reading on storytelling. I was looking at storytelling as a natural progression from what I was doing in theatre.”
Serendipity got the duo together. Initially, they had only heard about each other. “We were part of the same community in Bangalore Writer’s Workshop,” says Nisha. Deeptha adds: “I got a mail from Nisha, and everything fell into place from then.” In 2013, Deeptha set up Ever After Learning, and Nisha joined as co-founder in 2014.
It is not just in the arts and education that the duo put their storytelling skills to work, but also in other industries. “We are working with a construction company that wanted to use storytelling to percolate their core values to their employees. We had to cull out stories from the business world that matched with their core values,” says Deeptha.
They researched Laurie Baker, a British-born Indian architect, Jack Welch, an American CEO and Indra Nooyi, among others.
They have also done a series of videos for a company involved in training, banking and financial services, which addressed issues such as personal communication, time management and decision making.
The duo plan to conduct a storytelling session on A.K. Ramanujan’s folktales from India. “We want to do more theme-based storytelling and incorporate music into our stories,” Deeptha concludes.
