' Kathakar'- A storytelling session for Primary.

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.'Robert McKee.

Children have an innate love for stories. Stories create magic and a sense of wonder at the world. Stories teach us about life, about ourselves and about others. A good story telling session can do wonders to a childs imagination and can really work at enhancing his expression. It was this thought that led us to arrange a visit to a storytelling session at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, ( IGNCA).

The session was attended by ten students of class 5 with their teacher and a PTA representative on 5 February 2016. It was a part of a 3 day International Story-telling Festival, Kathakar. The event was hosted by the NGO, Nivesh, known to organise a travelling literary festival called Ghummakad Narain and The British Council.

At the session, the age old way of listening to grandmas stories under a banyan tree was replicated as children sat listening to stories in the open air amphitheatre of the IGNCA. The story session was conducted by Tim Ralphs, a celebrated story teller across the globe. As Tim began his narration of The Firebird, a story for young children, he soon had everyone in the audience engrossed with his clever storytelling skills.

The children found The Firebird a beautiful heart-warming story and they came to adore the character of the Horse who was fun-loving and playful. They enjoyed the impersonations of different characters by the storyteller and seemed transported into an imaginary world! The lit up faces and mesmerised looks spoke volumes about the interest it had generated in the children. The session lasted for about an hour. Their feedback soon after the session was 'brilliant, epic, fantastic, amazing and.fabulous'!

The next day, when the children arrived at school, they rushed eagerly to their classrooms and prompted a full-on class discussion about the story, their experiences and how they had been inspired to incorporate ideas from the session into their own stories. The experience had truly seemed to have worked its magic on them!

If you dont know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you dont know the stories you may be lost in life. Siberian Elder.

Ms. Vandana Tewari.