A world of stories, for young & old

The eight edition of Kathakar — International Storytellers Festival is here with stories from across the globe.

The festival brings some rare arts forms from India, Dolls Theatre by Sudip Gupta from Kolkata, Phad, the scroll storytellers, from Rajasthan, Powada, the vibrant storytelling of Shivaji’s tales, and Pandvani by Ritu Verma. Incidentally, Verma has collaborated with storytellers in the UK too.

Internationally, Godfrey Duncan, known as the unorthodox preacher in the storytelling circles, will not just tell native tales from Africa in the traditional style but also the Indian tale of Vikram and Betaal. Another storyteller from the UK is Xanthe Gresham, who will share stories from the UK, Greece, Russia, Iran and Persia. Michal Malinowski will be bringing legends and myths of Poland. To commemorate 150 years of celebrating the Mahatma, Shaguna Gahilote will be performing Bapu ki Kahani.

A brainchild of Gahilote sisters, the festival started under the aegis of Unesco in 2010 to promote, preserve and celebrate the ancient art of storytelling.

“Last year, the audience really enjoyed Vishal Bhardwaj’s narration of an Enid Blyton story, which was the inspiration behind his film Makdi. Director Imtiaz Ali and musician Mohit Chauhan will come together for the first time to talk about their journey of Rockstar; and Danish Hussian will be performing the adaptation of Ibn-e-Insha’s play, Qissa Urdu ki Aakhri Kitaab Ka,” informs Prarthana Gahilote, festival director.

Kathakar is part of the travelling literature festival, Ghummakkad Narain, which is inspired from the life of Thakur Vishva Narain Singh. He was a Soviet Land Nehru awardee and had initiated the translation of numerous books for the visually challenged, helping establish a knowledge base of books for them. Narain, the festival character inspired from Singh, is therefore a man who travels with books, is loved by children and sits down to read from books or tell tales as he travels. — SS