The Art of Story-telling – Celebrating Children’s Day

Story telling is a dying art, and yet when the Junior programme invited me to witness the session of story-telling that they had organised on the occasion of Children’s Day, I was amazed. The story tellers were parents who had volunteered for the day, and of course, the teachers too. Some story-tellers were given a stall, while others elected to on a less structured setting and decided to tell their stories wherever there was a place to sit. It was amazing to see the story-tellers literally enthralling their listeners with different stories. Some of the storytellers used elaborate props while others used simple props and a few opted not to use any prop at all! What mattered most was the story each story-teller told, and the expressions on face, and voice modulation. Most of the stories were interactive and the tiny tots, some not so tiny, pitched in making the story even more interesting!

The power of story-telling cannot be denied at all. In a world that is steadily moving towards the dry presentation of facts and figures, statistics and findings, the power of the story is steadily being ignored! How much more powerful does a research paper become when it is narrated! When narrate the story of the research, it becomes all the more interesting and effective. In the past, when printing was not yet prevalent, the epics were transmitted down generations by story tellers, and bards. The fact that many of our existing fables, epics, and fairy tales once existed only in the minds of the story tellers stands testimony to the fact that story can never die as long as it continues to exist in the minds of the people! Somehow, I guess, the collective consciousness of the society is something that can persist even when you don’t have it recorded on paper or electronic media.

Besides story telling, drama is yet another powerful tool of expression, and the teachers of the Senior Programme too put up a skit for the students on the occasion of children’s day. The play put up by the teachers described a typical class room situation in which the teacher comes across students with different abilities. The understanding of a topic requires total attention on the part of the learner as well as the teacher. In many cases, questions should be clearly framed so that the student doesn’t misunderstand what the teacher wants to know. Drama is a more complex form of story-telling because it requires more props and a specific location and a stage, although street plays can take place almost anywhere.

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