TASTE OF LIFE
So my source is just these pure simple tales – The
Panchatantra, The Jataka, and even The Stories of King
Vikramaditya. If you go deeper into the Vikramaditya
stories, there is so much more from an adult’s emotional
perspective. Today who knows these stories? They are
profound, and told in a simple language which can be
understood. For a child it may be just a joke, but for an
adult it’s such a strong thing.
So my source is digging the folktales of our country itself.
Every state has thousands and thousands of folktales, and
that’s where I start my collection. The word ‘folklore’
means ‘wisdom of people’, so it could be anything from
Tenali Raman to Birbal, Rabindranath Tagore to Bharatiyar.
It could be stories from the history of known people and
unknown people, stories about the origin of food and so
on.
So one source is definitely folktales, and the other is listening
and digging deeper, questioning. When I question, I discover
that everything has a story.
Q: Who are your audiences? How do they respond
to your sessions?
My assumption is that human beings like to listen to stories.
We assume that children are the ones who love stories,
whereas I feel that anybody who is emotional will love
stories. And I think everyone is emotional.
It’s also a journey for me. Even if I don’t achieve a certain
emotional response today, it may happen tomorrow. I am
not a storyteller; I am trying to be a storyteller. I may be
a storyteller tomorrow and then I will connect more with
someone.
Each person responds based on their baggage – on their
mindset, how their day passed, and so on. For children
there is absolutely no yesterday, today or tomorrow, and
that’s the ideal state that we all try to reach. As adults, we
are constrained by the traffic, what we are going to make
or eat for dinner, and in that, how we express our emotions.
So, depending on the day people react to the stories
differently.
Q: Storytelling for children is popular, but what
triggered you to reach out to adults through this
medium?One trigger was definitely discovering a deeper meaning
to the stories we generally tell, like The Hare and the
Tortoise. It’s a story we tell children about life, but if you
look at it deeper, are we a mammal like the hare or a reptile
like the tortoise? Are we running life like the hare or are
we walking life like a tortoise?The original story is in Aesop’s Fables; Aesop was a
somewhat romanticized character who is depicted as a
Greek slave who was freed because of his cleverness, and
ended up becoming an advisor to kings and city states.
From the little bit of travel that I have done, I have come
across the phrase “Haraka haraka haina baraka”, which
is a proverb in Swahili that means “Haste makes waste”
(Literally it means “Hurry, hurry, no blessing”). In Hindi,
it’s dhire dhire (slowly, slowly); in Tamil, arakka parakka
(hurry-burry).68 Heartfulness