Saturday, March 21, 2015

World Storytelling Day!

Yesterday, March 20th was World Storytelling Day. A quick read about this in Wikipedia did not reveal anything specifically exciting. However, as I am a father of a curious child, the idea of story telling remains a matter of interest to me. For the same reason, I am surprised that I didn't consciously think about and explore this till now. Now is as good a time as any!

The first story that I listened to was Gajendra Moksham as told by my mother upon locating a sculpture that represented the story at a temple. That was probably about thirty years ago. Since then, I must have listened to a lot of stories primarily related to the great epics  Ramayana and Mahabharata. The fact that most of what I know of the these two epics is primarily because of my grandmother's narrative is testimony to the amount of time I spent listen to the stories.

Upon reminiscing about this experience, I think the impact of the story on the listener depends as much, if not more, on the narrative and the emotional connect the listener has with the teller, as the quality of its content. I think the derived moral of stories that we listen to, watch or read as a child settles beneath the conscious mind and plays its part, on how we react to situations and what opinion we form.

I find that there are organizations working in this space targeting young impressionable minds in the hope of improving their experience and enriching their personalities. Kid and Parent Foundation and Bangalore Storytelling Society are the curious cases in Bangalore!

1 comment:

Jagan said...

शुक्लांबरधरं विष्णुं शशि वर्णं चतुर्भुजं ।
प्रसन्न वदनं ध्यायेत सर्व विघ्नोपशान्तये॥

OMG... I was telling this sloka for many years without knowing this is Gajendra Stuti....