Power of Story Telling
Yesterday night (Feb 27,'14) as usual Diyah wanted to hear two stories before falling asleep. Fresh from reading Kalikudduka and Magic Pot, I weaved a Luttapi story for her:
One day a child was riding a bicycle. Luttapi came that way. On seeing the child he said, hi, hi, today I'll play a trick on this child's bicycle. He climbed on the back of the cycle and began to dance. The child lost its balance and cycle zig zagged adn hit a tree. The child started crying. Luttapi took hold of the cycle and started riding it fast. Mayavi was watching all this from above and he decided to teach Luttapi a lesson.
He chanted a mantra: Om hreem, flat tyre, flat tyre. Immediately both the tyres burst and Luttappi lost control of the cycle and fell into a canal. Mayavi again said a mantra: 'Water, Water'. The canal was filled with water and Luttapi was almost drowned when he used the spear to push himself out of the waters and run for his life riding on his spear.
Mayavi returns the cycle back in good condition to the child who is much relieved and rides off making fun of Luttapi. Hi, Hi..
I also told a second story which I forgot and soon Diyah fell asleep.
Two or three things emerge from this:
1) The theme of Good demon Mayavi vs bad demon Luttapi: It is so magical that you can weave so many stories from it as Balarama editorial team is continuing to do today, a rich legacy of Late Mohan Sir (with whom I could spent 7 months in 1994).
2)The second is the power of story telling itself and its impact on imagination of a child. I remember my school days at Arya Central in Trivandrum in late 70's when we had a Hindi teacher Bhavani Kutty who excelled in telling stories from
the Ramayana and Mahabharatha as well as popular folk tales. I often wondered whether crows really had the intelligence to put pebbles to bring the water up. Any way all of us liked such stories and took our imagination to new heights.
Years later, I were to choose a profession that requires telling 'stories' every day. It began with human interest (about people and places) and subsequently to 'business news stories' and ultimately now 'market news'- of all the things that happened and some outlook on what could happen next with some amount of imagination or intuition.
I wish young kids spend more time reading and listening to stories rather than before TV & DVds. After all our capacity to weave images in our mind is based on what we hear and read: This I am sure can enable us to create better scientists, politicians, businessmen, writers, engineers, artists or for that matter any professional. After all, the invention of the aeroplane itself was inspired by the birds flying and the imagination that one day man can also make machines to fly (Which in turn could have also been inspired from Pushpaka vimana in Ramayana!)
Yesterday night (Feb 27,'14) as usual Diyah wanted to hear two stories before falling asleep. Fresh from reading Kalikudduka and Magic Pot, I weaved a Luttapi story for her:
One day a child was riding a bicycle. Luttapi came that way. On seeing the child he said, hi, hi, today I'll play a trick on this child's bicycle. He climbed on the back of the cycle and began to dance. The child lost its balance and cycle zig zagged adn hit a tree. The child started crying. Luttapi took hold of the cycle and started riding it fast. Mayavi was watching all this from above and he decided to teach Luttapi a lesson.
He chanted a mantra: Om hreem, flat tyre, flat tyre. Immediately both the tyres burst and Luttappi lost control of the cycle and fell into a canal. Mayavi again said a mantra: 'Water, Water'. The canal was filled with water and Luttapi was almost drowned when he used the spear to push himself out of the waters and run for his life riding on his spear.
Mayavi returns the cycle back in good condition to the child who is much relieved and rides off making fun of Luttapi. Hi, Hi..
I also told a second story which I forgot and soon Diyah fell asleep.
Two or three things emerge from this:
1) The theme of Good demon Mayavi vs bad demon Luttapi: It is so magical that you can weave so many stories from it as Balarama editorial team is continuing to do today, a rich legacy of Late Mohan Sir (with whom I could spent 7 months in 1994).
2)The second is the power of story telling itself and its impact on imagination of a child. I remember my school days at Arya Central in Trivandrum in late 70's when we had a Hindi teacher Bhavani Kutty who excelled in telling stories from
Years later, I were to choose a profession that requires telling 'stories' every day. It began with human interest (about people and places) and subsequently to 'business news stories' and ultimately now 'market news'- of all the things that happened and some outlook on what could happen next with some amount of imagination or intuition.
I wish young kids spend more time reading and listening to stories rather than before TV & DVds. After all our capacity to weave images in our mind is based on what we hear and read: This I am sure can enable us to create better scientists, politicians, businessmen, writers, engineers, artists or for that matter any professional. After all, the invention of the aeroplane itself was inspired by the birds flying and the imagination that one day man can also make machines to fly (Which in turn could have also been inspired from Pushpaka vimana in Ramayana!)
