SOULspace

Pure storytelling is not performance... As we sit or cuddle cozily into bed, or mayhaps, cuddle near mum or grand mum; old forgotten stories, or new ones are told. There are no frills, no dramatics (maybe, if you have a person who loves to be theatrical!). Just the teller and the audience, transported into a world of words. Living and feeling the nature of the story. Sometimes pensive, sometimes giggly, sometimes bored, sometimes demanding, the audience draws the teller into different moods and spaces. This audience may have not done all this, yet the teller took us into his world of stories, lost to many, but discovered by the interested few. I went for a story telling session at Page Turners book shop by Acoustic Traditional.( Hmm...I would like to know the story behind that name?!). They are an NGO working at reviving tribal folklore and stories. Salil the story teller and the brain behind AT, sweetly and cleverly spun 2 tales from ancient lore for us. One about a monk and h...

  Sometimes we realise that people are indeed the most unique in the world. Whatever said and done for every Evil that happens....(yet that need not happen)...the Good that happens is also manifold. Meet Mrs.Beulah of The Refuge Foundation, she had a calling (she says), from early childhood to take care of children. The children we take pity on but rarely step forward to do anything about. Yet her family wanted normal things for her, marriage, husband, job and twin sons. But one day she took that step of faith into another world. She quit her teaching job and started taking in children abandoned by parents and society. Now she runs an orphanage (I cannot call it that, as what we saw was a wonderfully warm Home), with 19 children. With the support of her husband who continues to work in a school, and her twin sons, who are equally compassionate, she takes care of these children like they are her own. Meet Mahesh , whose mother died and father was incapable of looking after h...

Children are the future of our country. Watching CNN-IBN hero Anuradha and her fight for girls in Nepal from trafficking, moved me beyond words. She asks a simple question "Can you see your daughter in my girls?" I do, but for this I can only cry. Narayana Murthy says that we must provide Real heroes to our children, to live values that they can emulate. I want to, so for this I can only try. ---------------------------------------------------- Children in Orphanges grow up with a disconnect. Unless they are lucky enough to be in a nurturing environment. They need real Heroes to show them that they too can create new futures and possibilities. As a part of of a leadership programme that I am doing, my project is about taking Real Heroes/Heroines who grew up in Orphanages and have them share their success and failures with other children who are now growing in a similar environment. I am looking for people who have become successful in spite of growing up in O...