When I try to picturise a storyteller, I can only think of my grandmother. Curled up next to her warm flabby tummy at night, I would get her to tell me stories of her childhood, her marriage and her parents. But it was always in the dark, guided only by her voice and my imagination.
But when Jeeva Raghunath tells you a story, it is as visual as it can get. All at once, she is an actor, singer, mimic and dancer. The veteran storyteller recently came out of her self-imposed break to narrate folk tales at Backyard in Adyar. The performance was a precursor of sorts to a storytelling festival, Under the Alaamaram, that will take place in August and host storytellers from seven different countries in eight cities including Chennai, Madurai and Coimbatore.
Raghunath herself has been to over 23 countries, sharing Indian folk tales. With all the travel comes interesting titbits about the storytelling styles of each country. “Take Scotland, for example. The Scottish have a quiet style, the accompanying music they use is also slow. They tell stories we would have thought unacceptable for children,” she says. Her animated performance came as quite a surprise to them. “They were taken aback but they liked it.”
Another difference between Western and Indian storytelling is the amount of audience interaction. “Narrations in the West have a lot of refrains and chants by both the teller and the listener. Whereas we’ve had songs and dances in our stories but they wouldn’t involve the audience. We have to add that these days,” says Raghunath.
The tradition of storytelling is deep-rooted in the East, claims Raghunath. “The West packages it better, they make more noise,” she laughs. “We have always had a rich culture of storytelling but it was never used formally in schools. But once the West started doing it, we followed them. There’s a belief that what they do is best.”
On the other hand, her performances are highly sought after when she goes to the US. “It’s about what’s ‘exotic’,” she says.
The child in you
At her performance in Backyard, the audience consists of fellow storytellers, teachers and parents, and just one child. Raghunath narrates the story of a man who is in search of his favourite sweet, the kozhukattai , and will do whatever it takes to get it, including hitting his wife.
It’s a tale as old as time — back when low-key domestic abuse by a bumbling fool was considered hilarious as long as it was followed by some cutesy cajoling. However, Raghunath has the audience singing and clapping to her tunes. It is followed by another classic story from Panchatantra, The Talking Tortoise. For this one, Raghunath teaches the listeners sign language and has them tell the story instead while she keeps signing.
Adults have turned into children during the course of the hour. “The age group of your listeners doesn’t matter. You either address the child or the child in the adult. It’s all about the bond that is created between the listener and the teller,” says Raghunath. And that is how storytelling is different from theatre: the audience is as important a part of the process as the narrator, the house lights are always on.
In the genes
Raghunath has been a professional storyteller for 21 years, before which she was a teacher. However, she has been telling stories ever since she was five years old. So who was it that told the young Raghunath stories? “My mother, grandmother, uncle, they all did. I come from a family of storytellers,” she says.
Her grandmother’s and her mother’s styles of narration couldn’t have been more diametrically opposite. “My mother would just sit at one place and emote through her eyes. She would make us laugh one moment, cry the other,” she says. “My grandmother, on the other hand, was very physical and animated. Her genre was humour,” she says.
And it is her grandmother who had the biggest influence on her. She recalls family meals of rice, pickle and appalam with her cousins as her grandmother told them stories, and says, “I take after her.”
