FOLKLORE turns fable

Having grown up listening to her grandmother’s delightful stories and soon realising that they were undocumented treasures, Bengaluru girl Smrthi Harits is now on a mission to keep long-forgotten stories, games and traditions from our childhood alive with Kagakka Gubakka.

These free monthly meet-ups that happen across parks in select areas of Bengaluru aim to bridge the widening gap between children and Indian heritage, that’s now being forgotten thanks to our obsession with screens. We get the details from the 22-year-old founder.

“I’ve a lot of nieces and nephews and all that they ever want to do is stay glued to the TV or meddle on mobile phones. Nobody wants to play on the streets anymore,” she opens up, pointing to a rather disturbing trend. That’s when she founded Kagakka Gubakka. “Unlike Jataka Tales and Panchatantra, the Kagakka Gubakka stories aren’t documented and are not available anywhere on the Internet. They are stories about a conniving crow and a smart sparrow who are friends and about their adventures together,” she says about the stories she once heard from her grandmother. Just like these stories, games like kabaddi, lagori, kho kho and chowka bhara aren’t being played anymore. And these meet ups act as revival sessions of sorts. “We see about 50-60 kids at a time. It starts with a 15-minute warm up session of gamified learning and personality development, followed by three stories – one rooted in mythology, folk and another one that makes them laugh. It ends with games that everybody looks forward to,” she smiles. These sessions take place at Sankey Tank in Malleswaram, MN Krishna Rao Park in Basavanagudi, Madhavan Park in Jayanagar and Dr Ambedkar Park in Rajarajeshwari Nagar. What’s more? The old-timers from these localities are coming forward to share stories, and believe that interacting with kids is giving them a second chance at life!  

An engineering student from PESIT, although Smrthi hasn’t had any formal training in storytelling, she believes that the expressive nature associated with the feat comes naturally to her as she is a classical dancer. “Another surprising outcome is that, I never thought I’d be good with kids!” she quips. These sessions, Smrthi hopes, will expose kids to not just how the 90s kids grew up, but also bring them out of their digital worlds and closer to their grandparents, who are full of these tales. “Eventually, I want this to become an organic movement – not just mine, but everybody’s,” she offers, in conclusion