Tales from far and wide

LONG AGO is the phrase which draws everyone’s attention. Be it a kid, be it a teenager, be it a youngster or be it an old person, age doesn’t matter. What matters is a good story. A story can be called by different names: Kahani, Kathee, Kathai, Katha, Kadha and many more. But at the end, a story is a blend of humour, drama, fantasy, horror and more. There are four fantastic ladies who opted for story-telling as their full-time profession and formed Kathayvaanis. The group comprises Aparna Jaishankar, Shylaja Sampath, Lavanya Prasad and Sowmya Srinivasan. Describing it in their own words, they say “Over a coffee catch up, four professional storyteller friends were discussing the various genres of stories that could be explored and excitedly decided to perform together.”

These four women started their career individually but they were meeting in similar story-telling events. The four ladies met, discussed and gave a name to their group KathayVaani which means “Voice of stories” and the journey started.

Aparna entered the world of Arts through theatre and she says, “I further trained my skills in storytelling in which I found my bliss. I love multiple versions of the same story. Once my broad framework is ready, I do spontaneous improvisations. What I love the most is Mahabharata which is a trove of treasures and my favourite story performed by us is the Talking Dolls series where we shared Malala’s story by narrating the power of feminine beautifully.”

KathayVaanis believe in the adage, “Unity is strength.” They learn from their strengths and constructive criticism. They all together said “Story-telling helps in connecting with people. Entertaining and informing each other, family, friends, culture and community.” They brainstorm to formulate, execute and implement.
They consider the age of the target audience, repeated requests for certain genres of stories, the flavour of the season or sometimes something totally out of the box.

Lavanya is a music lover, dance enthusiast and an extrovert. She started saying “There is a story in everybody and everything and that realisation helped me to turn into a story-teller from a teacher. Teaching was also done more through stories and eventually the age-group changed. I don’t believe that stories are only for kids and it is just a myth. I create a spark of interest in any story I narrate and I like to explore the history of India and make it more interesting with added joy to it.”

Souwmya, another KathayVaani is a blogger and zentangler. She says “I love performing a story. Narrating it comes naturally to me. I started with libraries, activity centers, schools and eventually adults too joined in. They cater to everyone from kids to senior citizens by adopting various ways to entertain them. I like different versions of the same story. I write in my own words, practice storytelling and add some music, rhyme and some props to make it more interesting and easily approachable.”

KathayVaanis also use instruments, write songs, and create props from scratch, make masks etc rather than buying fancy stuff. They create a beautifully pleasing ambience over the stage which suits the theme. They improvise, add gigs, songs, sound effects, smoke, and twinkling lights. As they found that the kids are more interested in the scary stories, they add hand-made spiders, bones, dried branches, paper skeletons etc. Such hard-work, thought-process and execution speaks for their commitment levels.

Shylaja is a teacher, traveller, reader and singer and loves to talk to people from which she learns a lot. She says, “I quit teaching and have been following my interests since 20 years. Being good at emotional narrating and entertaining stories, I sing, emote and characterise different stories in an approachable manner.”

The list of stories they performed include Scary Stories, Talking Dolls, Arabian Nights, Vasilissa, Malalla Yusufzai and The Magic Horse. Reading immensely and observing keenly helps them to fix with the stories, improvise with changing trends and add relevant elements to highlight the story