SOULspace

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...

When we undertake an activity for the sheer pleasure of engagement, then the results we get are un-measurable. With those profound words, I take you to view some pictures; The Book Club I facilitate at Think Box library, is always looking for things to do differently. Last year we visited a Printing Press and had a collection of articles/ drawings by the club members published into a book. This year I really wanted to showcase how illustration and visual images,,can inspire story creation and vice-versa. The options were to interview illustrators, that is, have someone talk about book illustrations or to take them to an Art Gallery to just experience Art in its real sense. This could inspire the children we thought (Bhakti Shah of Think Box is a great support and in fact drives many of these activities). Mails flew back and forth as we tried to find an Art Gallery for kids, that would support us, as we were looking at taking 11 really enthusiastic children ...

Where do I begin to tell you of all the wonderful things that have been happening? October started with a bang...with a great storytelling session for the Picturing Change event at Thalam Gallery in Domlur. Let me rewind a bit to tell you that I met a wonderful soul called Mathangi in a theatre workshop. Somehow in spite of the age difference we really clicked!! We kept in touch, and I happened to keep bumping into her from time to time. and so it happened....she invited me to do a story session for children from the Anganwadis that she was working with, on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. But the request was to do it in Kannada! That is a challenge, as I can tell in English and Tamil, but have never tried Kannada. Luckily for me, Aparna, who I work with at Kid and Parent Foundation is fluent in Kannada, so we accepted the invitation to do a session in Kanglish (if you will pardon my typical englification of Kannada!) Picturing Change is a wonderful idea, conceptualized ...