Storytelling becomes techno

It’s a basic fact that a majority of public speakers ignore-- reading the pulse of the audience. Nobody- absolutely nobody likes to listen to preachy, bookish speeches. And if your audiences are children they wouldn’t even bother to pretend. A storytellers’ conference took place in New Delhi last week and I happened to attend it. It was supposed to be an international conference but only a handful of countries were represented. But the few that came stood out. And why wouldn’t they? While most of our people read out boring often gathered from the net papers that induced more yawns than accolades, the foreigners made sure the audience was hooked on to their words thanks to their histrionics. Well, isn’t that what storytelling is about? You need to be in sync with your listeners and if you’re using music, dance, puppetry and drama to do so- all the better!

Tanya Batt from New Zealand electrified the audi with her exotic costume, her spontaneity and her voice modulation. When prompted to shorten her presentation she even mimicked a fast forwarded tape to lighten the air. Muriel Bloch, a French storyteller and writer had the listeners in splits with her off beat stories laced with humour. The Iranian storyteller wore a special abaya (burkha) with a night sky drawn on it and a series of pictures velcroed on it which she opened one by one as the story progressed. The only thing is nobody understood the story because she spoke in Persian and there were long breaks between her version and the interpreter’s. But the funniest act was by a Mongolian who, when he found that his floppy didn’t work and his translator had ditched him, began to sing ‘mera joota hai japani’!! Atleast he was off the podium in two minutes.
However, where the Indians scored was in the cultural programmes. Some very innovative and talented storytelling came through the dance, puppetry and mime acts. Among the most impressive ones were Jayanti Anand Shankar’s ballet troupe which enacted Panchatantra stories, children from Bal Bhavan who performed mime acts and a scintillating kathputli show by Santosh Bala Bhatt from Rajasthan.
Professional storytelling is a skilled and sophisticated craft in Europe, United States, Australia and New Zealand today. Hi-fi music, special effects, puppets, moppets- storytellers use all kinds of technology to get their tales across. In India storytelling practically doesn’t exist. The oral storytelling tradition of centuries disappeared long ago. And seriously, nobody here has the time to tell or listen to a story. All you need to do is go to a book fair and see what kind of books sell most. Supplementary school readers, self help books and cookery books! That’s right. Can you really blame the children then? They don’t know what they are missing!