Mumbai-based Svaha Dasgupta narrates a Bengali story Bhoy peona (Don’t be scared), written by Sukumar Ray, Satyajit Ray’s father, of a monster inviting people to its cave. The Class IV student modulates her voice to add a tinge of drama. While Hyderabad’s Prasiddha Prasad narrates the story of Saptaswara, Stuti B Sathavalli in her Fishy Tales draws a kolam of matsya (fish) and talks about Meenakshi, the fish-eyed and Matsya avatar. These eclectic stories — some age-old tales and some from mythology come alive with a touch of animation at Kutty Kahani —Eternal Stories, Young Storytellers, a delightful multilingual (with subtitles) storytelling video series.
Bite-sized stories
Dancer Ananda Shankar Jayant
Created, produced and presented by Natyarambha — a digital platform by Hyderabad-based renowned dancer Ananda Shankar Jayant — Kutty Kahani premièred on November 20, and will continue till December 31. The series has young storytellers (aged six to 13) from across India, Malaysia, the UK and the US, sharing timeless stories through chanting, music, dance, poetry, puppetry, acting and storytelling in bite-sized, five-minute-long video capsules.
Stories help us connect to our roots, says Ananda, who conceptualised the series. “Whatever content we have now, has adults speaking to the child. We wanted to let stories come through the prism of a child,” she adds.
Ananda’s brief to young parents and teachers across the country and overseas for the collection, was to focus only on kahanis from the Indian soil. She was also particular about not making them into reading sessions. Parents were provided with instructions and technical information on how to shoot the videos at home.
With some re-shoots, the raw files were edited and packaged by animation artist Gunjan Ashtaputra. With a peppy lead song sung by Prasiddha Prasad and Bhakti Hiranmayi, the animated elements visually enhance the five-minute videos.
Speaking about their choice of story, Svaha’s mother Swapnokalpa Dasgupta says, “The story draws attention to the fact that people tell young children many things but it is for us to decide what their intentions are; One should be wary and alert.”
Ananda, had to don a different role during the process; from chasing parents for deadlines to explaining the video production process and asking them to re-shoot was a different experience. But she is glad Kutty Kahani has caught the imagination of young kids, and parents wake up every morning to the next story.
The videos are uploaded at 8 am every day on Natyarambha’s social media pages and also at narthaki.com.
