“We owe it to each other to tell stories.” – Neil Gaiman
Storytelling is an ancient art form and a valuable form of human expression, as stories are essential to many art forms. Gyaan Adab celebrated “World Story Telling Day” on 20th March 2014. Celebrated every year in the first day of autumn; World Story Telling Day is a global open-source storytelling movement. On World Storytelling Day, as many people as possible tell and listen to stories in as many languages and at as many places as possible, during the same day and night. Participants tell each other about their events in order to share stories and inspiration.
Pune’s Story Tellers group initiated by Mr. Peter Viegas presented a few stories on the theme “Monsters and Dragons” at Gyaan Adab Centre to celebrate the World Story Telling Day. Storytelling predates writing, with the earliest forms of storytelling being oral combined with gestures and expressions. The idea behind celebrating World Story Telling Day at Gyaan Adab Centre was to preserve and carry forward the art and tradition of story-telling.
The story telling session was attended by listeners of all ages, reiterating the fact that story tellings are not just for children, but can be enjoyed by anyone and everyone. The session began with John Samson narrating an engrossing story about an ugly statue in the middle of a town in Iceland. It was about how a little girl named Cara saves herself from a big bad troll. Chetan Shetty then narrated an engaging story about King Harshavardhan who, in a quest to regain his lost freedom is compelled to find the answer to the daunting question “What do women want?” Vinay Kirpal a member from the audience then read out a story by Satyajit Ray about Nikunja Babu and his robot servant Anukul. Ashutosh Bhupatkar read a story by Sadat Hasan Manto. Satish Khot narrated a sweet love story of a young boy smitten by a pretty girl in his class. The evening ended with Sunita Shetty reading out stories written by Mehul Philip and Zain Merchant. Mehul’s story was about a blood sucking lady killer, while Zain’s story, ‘The
Monster’s Elixir and the Pet Serpent’, reflected the torment faced by a son and his mother owing to an alcoholic abusive father.
This was the first story telling session organized at Gyaan Adab Centre and was met with a very positive response.
Gyaan Adab believes that that there is a storyteller in everybody and those stories make the world.
