Telling Chennai tales
DEEPA ONKAR
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Bringing alive the city and its tales and folklore, Jeeva Raghunath took the kids on a veritable journey through storyland.
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Photo : M_Vedhan
Lively session : With Jeeva.
To give children a flavour of the different Tamil dialects that flourish in Chennai — this was the aim of Jeeva Raghunath and Tulika Publishers in conducting the story-telling session, TuliKAKAkavin Kadhaigal, organised by Tulika on the occasion of Madras Week. Parents, grandparents and children gathered around in the room at the Madras Terrace House to listen. Jeeva began by trying to get the children to respond and participate, speaking in Tamil.
Essence of the city
The stories and characters might have been familiar to the children from the books by Tulika – Malli, A Day with Priya, Magic Vessels, and many more. These stories, are available as bilingual books, in a conscious attempt to make reading in the mother tongue more accessible to the child. The children got to hear of Priya and Malli’s adventures, the sort of characters they were, and their relationship.
True to the oral tradition, Magic Vessels — a story about vessels that produce endless quantities of delicious food is a story from the folk-lore of Tamil Nadu. Jeeva perfectly mimed the different dialects of Tamil that can be heard in Chennai — of the fishermen, the women in concert halls, the womenn on the street. The fisherman’s description of how to build a catamaran brought to life by the sea. The songs that were woven into the narrative brought out a range of rhythms, sounds and images, animating the stories. Jeeva asked the children to participate in the singing and soon the room was filled with song and clapping. The caricatures of the people often had the audience in splits. It was not just the children, but parents and grandparents too, who were fully entertained.
A fitting way to celebrate Chennai week!
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