Tell your own story

Storytelling is a dream job for many and seems easy to be one. And Guy Hutchins, a professional storyteller from U.K., was 'dreamworks' in animation er..motion! His fluid word/body language talk in a recently held workshop in collaboration with Story Trails at British Council, was a world beyond the ordinary.

Creative imagination that can weave a bizarre fantasy world, where the animate in the inanimate is a possibility-Where the story wins the hearts of young and younger spirited listeners and humbles itself to children's faith and preserves it without preaching morals-this is the storyteller's world as unraveled in the workshop.

Being a world traveler and  a keen observer of folk culture makes Guy's stories existential. His probing of why a particular thing/animal happens to be the way it is today, recreates history in a new story avatar.
The shape that the incidents form in sequence in order to lead an effect for the main plot of the journey are his story trails.

Life is too short for revisiting and retelling the histories from the past-but the tales, the epics, the dramas and the many other oral traditions that one can pass down to the generations that follow can be newly revisited, thanks to such story workshops.

Making magic real in a child's world is possible only if we start believing in them. Being a child all over again would someday be a dream come true.Isn't i t?

I have a dream...

An evening walk for me is all about strolling on the sidewalk, taking in the breezy Chennai air, and having enough road sense while crossing streets or stalling for a quick neighbour talk by the pavement, in order to make enough room for other pedestrians.

While being mindful of common ground is the first step towards dusky (or dusty?) city traffic, being mindlessly drunk and walking in 'full swing' is anywhere but sensible. TASMAC is the lively drunkard's omnipresent trademark. The outlet represents the flowing population that boozes the evening and the night away come what may. The masculine stupor drinks in any feminine sight in view, irrespective of the size or age. Half empty or half full, the 'clink' of bottles drowns the sounds of vehicles, as women like me wait or dodge for the senseless to pass, while our surge of fear for safety goes down the drain.

Feeling secure and safe are a dream for most metro women and feeling unsafe and insecure a living nightmare.
To talk the walk is safer a topic than walk the talk.Here's to having a dream!!

Game for IPL?

I looked out from my drawing room window and found a boy group play 'controlled compound cricket'. They are generally a bashful group of buddies who are in their early and pre teens, swinging mature batting stroke misadventures in the apartment parameters- the tall lamp post adjacent to the parking lot blinked in broken darkness from one such recent hit and run escapedes.

Being placidly playful was a sad sight as they played golf over cricket with a tennis ball!! The submissive play has lasted for a few days now and I see them gear up for compound cricket once again. Indraya Pasanga/Ponnunga League(IPL) is for all seasons :)

Besides this religious activity, the huddling together as 'boys' and 'girls' apart, gossiping small talk, giggling, discussing games and gadgets and any given technical trivia are the things they grow on. Play lesser and win harder is the attitude that works on the field or off it, owing to limitations like space, and getting big on creative freedom for their own  uninfluenced territory and reaching a winner's end at all costs.

Given to the single child phenomenon in many households, its an 'all for one' emotional and financial investment in a single child, who is loved as if he/she is the family's world, whereas outside of such comfort and in the compound, the child is one among the many wannabe hit and run winners. Slowing the kid down with love is not happening anymore, but to gear up towards hastened success is fast becoming a theme for Indraya pullainga league.



        

Women we can't do without!

Admit it or not, maids bring out more efficiency in women.They manage to keep the feminine better half of the house on her toes and even the in-laws take a backseat here.

The chores planned for another day gets sorted out in priority lists that match with the maid's convenience which is done on time or later but usually never earlier. The woman of the house can flex a muscle now and then, but the home needs a regular service that can do well with the domestic help at hand.

Generally maids study the homes and equally the mindsets of the woman of the house in order to make quick judgments on how much they would be paid or how soon any extra perks would come in near future.

The word of mouth reviews from their peers are no less a value addition for the maids who can decide who next to house-hunt for work as their demand is ever present in one housing community or the other.

Love them, hate them, but every working woman, housewife, or the self employed need them. In fact this could be the only compatible and working woman-woman rapport which thrives not just on how much gets paid, but how much they are addressed to as fellow women who have lives of their own and are not bound to slave for anyone just because they  choose to work as domestic help assistance.