A school for stories

“ It was in 1999 when I was doing a nursery teacher training course that for my final examination,my principal asked me to prepare a storytelling session. I chose a story and narrated it to my six-year-old son and his friends and rehearsed for it. At that time,I could see how much I enjoyed the process and decided to take it up and hone my skills further,” says Srivastava.

She also launched Kathashala in Gurgaon last week,where she conducts professional courses in storytelling,divided into three levels,basic,intermediate and super-specialised. The basic course deals with building levels of storytelling confidence,methods of narration and self expression. The intermediate level deals with voice mechanics and analysis of traditional tales to make original stories. Super-specialised involves dealing with communication skills like listening,presentations by professional storytellers and developing toolkits for storytelling. Kathashala is also a part of the curriculum of Billabong School,Noida,where a period of story-telling is mandatory for children from classes nursery to VI,three days in a week.

Ask her where she gets her stories from,and Srivastava says,“There is no dearth of stories,there are stories all around us. During your interaction with people,you get stories,while reading you get stories and I also travel to various places and try to dig out some of their traditional stories. Even if a story is old and people know about it,you can find a new way of telling it by giving it a different interpretation as every story has multiple angles to it.”

After completing her teachers’ training course,Srivastava worked as a facilitator for lifeskills programme and also learnt miming,puppetry and theatre. She uses all these performing arts to make her story-telling sessions more interesting.

“ When children indulge in such activities,it unleashes their creative potential and their doubts and thoughts come out. We take up a theme and then create a story around it. For instance,a cut-out of an animal can be used and a lot of stories can be weaved around it. It keeps children interested and they also learn at the same time. For children in the age group pf 5-9 years,we give them a theme and ask them to prepare a story. It also helps in improving their language skills and they come up with their own ideas,” she says.

Srivastava also organises sessions for corporates. “In the professional world,the importance of stories lies in the fact that they can help in reinforcing the importance of,for example,team work in an organisation. Stories help in stating such things in an easy manner that everyone can relate to.”

Srivastava also wants to revive various forgotten storytelling forms. For this,she plans to get traditional storytellers to Kathashala and provide them a platform to showcase their talent. “I want Kathashala to be like a movement where not only children,but people from all age groups get involved because stories can be used as an important tool for parenting,education and counselling.”

Simi Srivastava can be contacted at 9811112187