NEW DELHI:
On Sunday evening, the curtain came down on the 8th edition of ‘Kathakar—International Storytellers Festival’, which brought together some of the most admired raconteurs from India, UK, Poland, Africa, Bollywood, including well-known spiritual figure Sadhguru, at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA).
Attended by over 14,000 people, the three-day festival attracted a diverse group of listeners such as school children, young adults, history and storytelling enthusiasts, visually impaired students, senior citizens, fans of Hindi cinema and followers of Sadhguru. Organised by NGO Nivesh, with the Himalayan Hub for Art Culture and Heritage (HHACH), ‘Kathakar’ is India’s only oral storytelling festival that has revived the dying artform in different states of the country, through a series of dramatized storytelling sessions.
“In our eight-year-long journey, we have introduced nearly 200 storytellers to the people of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Shillong, Dehradun, Mussoorie. We have revived a dying art form, but it pains me to say that some of what we are showcasing are the last of the performers in their respective areas or genres,” said festival Organiser Rachna Gahilote Bisht.
The 8th edition of the festival, which has previously seen participation of well-known personalities like Dr A P J Kalam, Shashi Tharoor, Margaret Alva, and film-makers Vishal Bharadwaj and Nandita Das, was inaugurated by Isha Foundation’s Founder Sadhguru, musician Mohit Chauhan, and Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, on November 16. Sadhguru and Chauhan, who is known for including many a Himalayan tale in his compositions, was seen In Conversation with Sadhguru and they narrated the mystical stories on the inaugural day. On the second day, among other storytelling sessions, Chauhan and film-maker Imtiaz Ali talked about their journey of making films in Bollywood with special reference to the most musical film talked about in today’s time, ‘ROCKSTAR’.
The highlight of the concluding day was a session, titled ‘Kisse, Kahani aur Adakaari’ by noted theatre and film actor Pankaj Tripathi, who spoke to journalist and author Amrita Tripathi and festival Curator Shaguna Gahilote about his experience as a storyteller. Known for his underplayed performances, which are laced with dry humour, the Bihar-born actor held the listener’s attention with tales that were both spooky and hilarious at the same time.
Attended by a large group of emerging theatre performers, the session had Tripathi narrate a particularly ghostly tale during a rainy night in Patna, when his bike ride back home was repeatedly obstructed by a few hair-raising events.
In a brief introduction to his life and work, the audience was told that as a young boy, Tripathi would carry an axe to the school, in self-defence, because one of the administrators often threatened to chop his ears off if he made any mischief. His tryst with performance began as a teenage boy when he played the role of a woman during a theatre performance in his village, he added.
“Storytelling is very important. We have everything meant for the purpose of storytelling—eyes to see, a tongue to speak and ears to listen. That is how stories travel. And what we are today is because of the stories that we have heard,” the actor said, while reminiscing about his childhood days when his mother would put him to bed every night as she narrated a story.
The festival’s evening began with a song-and-dance performance of Pandvani, the 3,000-year-old epic storytelling form popular in the states of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. Supported by a band of saffron-clad musicians, leading Pandvani exponent Ritu Verma presented the tragic story of Draupadi’s disrobing through a highly evocative piece, which moved her to tears. Dressed in traditional attire and carrying a local instrument, Verma re-adapted the famous Mahabharata story for modern times.
“At that time Lord Krishna came to Draupadi’s rescue. But nobody will come to a woman’s rescue if she were to be in a similar situation today,” the actor said, in an obvious message about the prevailing concerns about the safety of women.
Taking a cue from Verma’s commentary on present-day social issues, Shaguna Gahilote presented ‘Ekatma’, the biography of freedom fighter and politician Pt Deendayal Upadhyay, whose life was cut short by a mysterious incident on a rail track. Narrated in a conversational style, Shaguna presented the story of Upadhyay’s life to drive home the point that compassion is a befitting solution to today’s problems, whether it is social media trolling or parking issues in cities.
One of the other highlights of the closing day was a performance of Dolls Theatre, a form of modern puppetry by Kolkata artist Sudip Gupta, who has propelled the genre to national and international fame. Creating a rhythmic synergy between traditional and modern puppetry, the show was titled ‘Taming of the Wild’, which was a playful take on the pitfalls of human progress on natural resources.
Charmed by the powerful storytelling sessions by Indian and international artists, the children had a field day dancing to the peppy vocals rendered by UK artist Xanthe Gresham, who invited the young listeners on stage as she wrapped up a story of popular Greek myths.
“It’s the children who are going to re-tell these stories. Will you take a vow to do that?” she asked the children, who presented an impromptu dance with several props such as drapes, toys etc. The visibly thrilled group of children responded in the affirmative.
