CHENNAI, 15/05/2008: A unique and happy experience of listening to stories from elders is fast disappearing. Photo: S.R. Raghunathan 15-05-2008
Every day, for over five years, a story has been told, recorded and uploaded on Oritathoritath. This Facebook page, devoted to Malayalam stories, was started by a small group of ‘storyphiles’ to keep the tradition of oral story telling alive.
Dilip K Varma, the man behind Oritathoritath (which can be roughly translated as “once upon a time...”), says the idea struck when he was in Mumbai, working long, stressful hours, away from his family. He missed telling stories to his children. “I am not a professional story-teller and neither did I know many. But I used Google to look for stories and told them in my own way. The Internet didn’t really help, so I found myself looking for books in my father’s library,” he says. Soon, Dilip launched an audio-story platform for children in 2015.”
On returning to his home-town Aluva, a few years later, he kept up the pace, uploading a story every day. He found a couple of fellow storyphiles and they started work, searching for interesting tales, to record and compile. “I belong to a generation that grew up listening to stories our grandmothers or mothers told us. Most children today do not have that,” he says. The original idea was to find elderly women and men who could tell stories, which they would record and update on a the FB page. So, the team found a few grandmothers. “But, we could not sustain that. Some agreed, but got self-conscious when they learnt it was being recorded.
Nevertheless, the team cultivated a few contributors who would regularly record and send in content. Today, the five-year-oldpage has a collection of over 1,900 stories that span classics, epics, Panchathanthra and local fables in Malayalam. These are told by amateurs, who are passionate about story-telling. It slowly grew into a YouTube channel, which has a little over 1,000 subscriptions and in January 2019, Oritathoritath launched a free android app by the same name.
It is important to document this content, as much of it is being lost, says Dilip. Though the stories are for children, the initiative is actually aimed at parents who can use the app to engage with their children. “The way in which each story is told is interesting — intonation, emotion and expression varies from person to person.”
Dilip adds that story telling helps children develop their imagination and creative thinking. It enriches their memory and opens their minds to other cultures and life philosophies. Recently, snippets from the Thirukkural have also featured on the platform, with an interpretation in Malayalam.
The team welcomes anyone who might have a tale to contribute : you just need to record, and send it to them. It will undergo a screening and if found fit for children, will be uploaded on the site. A word of caution: keep it short. “Not more than 10 minutes. If it is too long, children lose interest,” says Dilip.
In the process, Dilip says children get a chance to learn Malayalam. Even those who are not learning it in school will learn to appreciate the language, understand its history and the richness of its expanse. “When the story-teller has used rhyme or poetic prose, for instance, children get to hear the beauty of the language and way it sounds,” says Dilip. It is also a way to stay in touch with home: many contributors include Malayalis living abroad.
