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February has been a month of Tales. The most wonderful of them all was "The Kite Flyer of Beijing", created by John McCormick and his sons William and Connor. There is another story here...! I was to tell a story at the Chennai Storytelling Festival and decided it would be this beautiful story about an old Chinese man and his reluctance to let go of his life, he then takes the form of a kite and finally decides to go... It came to me at a time when I was looking for solace after my mother's death. Yet there was a clause that asked me to contact the author if I wanted to use the story in any way. I did (after some prodding from a friend) and the rest is his-story!! John not only gave me permission but also wrote about our email exchanges in his column on Huffington Post. Truly a Grace from above... You can read it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-mccormick/parenting-with-grace_b_4805934.html He also blogged about it on his website: http://dadtellmeasto...

Here is another story that touched me.I generally keep browsing for stories, and particularly look for stories that can be performed. There is a difference. You see, there are many stories, that need to be read aloud from a book as the language of the text itself is so beautiful, while others sound nice being narrated at some opportune moment, like  a personal story, or a parable. Stories that can be performed are a different league, not only does one need to relate with the characters, we also have to look at the flow of the story, in terms of the character's quest or search for some resolution. If you are a story writer, you will be well aware of how the story plot has to be carefully planned and characters sketches need to stand out for some unique reason or the other. So browsing through my collection of stories for a story to tell at the monthly meeting of BSN (Bangalore Storytelling Network) at Atta Galatta, I saw I had saved the story of Cupid and Psyche.  Ah! a...

Yes it was the second meeting of BSN! @ Thalam in Domlur on 30th July 2013 Bangalore Storytelling Network is creating a space for adult story tellers. This time it was a smaller group, but we shared great stories. I heard an Arabian folktale  and a Jewish folktale, a very engrossing and looong story from South India, a myth actually, then a children's tale and finally a wonderful episode from the Mahabharata. (I told a very contemporary myth from Tibet, written by a Shambala Sangha member.) The episode from Mahabharatha was taken from the book, The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and speaks about the beginning of the story of stories...and that it was all for a glass of milk...kept us engrossed for quite some time as any story from Indian mythology does, as it is so rich in metaphor (Thanks Neeta). It is difficult not to sit and ponder over the fact that when we actually trace the source of a gigantic manifested problem, it would have in fact started as...

Venue: Thalam Purpose: Meeting of the Bangalore Storytelling Network Theme: Any story for 5 minutes Well if I was to send you an invite it would contain these details! An interesting forum has been created  for Storytellers in Bangalore and the venue was Thalam, a brand new space for creative endeavors, in Domlur(check out the link)!! Thalam is centrally located and provides space for events, workshops and get-to's. We were happy to get this space for our first ever meeting of the Storytelling Network in Bangalore, created by Deeptha a pretty young storyteller! So a bit of intro, some stories and some thinking went into an evening spent sharing, understanding and creating...creating a focus for this group of people who appear to love stories...an evening well spent. Here is the story I said: AK Ramanujam's Folktales from India, is a collection one must read....like a scripture to put it more strongly. Read it and then again, till stories sink into your bone. I ...