Story Starter – Workshop Resources

Are you a teacher or a writer or a storyteller? Then you would definitely enjoy this post on StoryStarters that started as a simple question on Twitter. And then the thread unravelled into a yarn of wonderful possibilities.

Based on the story starters, here are some storytelling / creative writing / imagination activities. They are not for anyone specific – from classrooms to lecture halls, from a studio to a lonely cafe, they can be used anywhere.

Click here to download.

STORY STARTERS…

A Twitter thread that unravelled….

As always I daydream as much as I dream during the night. I was thinking about stories and how they started in Tamil. Here is a beautiful representation in popular culture from a Tamil movie.

And in response, people from across the world told me how stories start in their own cultures and languages including popular culture.

Teachers, storytellers and writers across the world got excited by this flurry of wonderful phrases that triggered our imaginations and set us off into a new journey.

Come and find the thread on Twitter https://twitter.com/csoundar/status/1114461222336913410

So I gathered all the bits of the thread as much as possible for all you story geeks to use. Click here to download the pdf.

Classroom / workshop resources based on story starters now available to download. Click here!

Want to know how I use story starters in my books? Read this post to find out more.

The Guardian featured this twitter thread on their website and since then it has sparked more interest. Here is a link provided by storyteller Tim Sheppard on more story openings.

For Some or All?

I write mainly stories that touch upon India in some way. Putting aside why that’s so, my stories bring tales from all parts of India.

Illustrated by Kanika Nair, Farmer Falgu series are great stories about positive thinking and making the most out of difficult situations.

Varsha’s Varanasi introduces the beautiful city of Varanasi.
Pattan’s Pumpkin brings a previously untold story of the Irular tribe. Illustrated by Frané Lessac
Prince Veera stories reimagine ancient trickster tales from India. Illustrated by Uma Krishnaswamy

These stories are definitely for the Indians who live everywhere in the world. I witness the joy of children from Indian backgrounds in schools across the world when I bring these stories to them. They are undoubtedly a joy to the parents and grandparents who can relate to them and enrich the reading session with their own stories and tales from their own lives.

But is that all? Surely these stories appeal to everyone else? For a child who has no connections to India, these stories are exotic, magical and from a place where they had never been to. Perhaps they’d travel to India, inspired by these books. Perhaps they’d relate to their neighbour from India better.

Stories about someone other than our lived experience is a window to the outside world. It is a door to walk through and make friends, shake hands and embrace someone new. It’s a mirror that reflects how similar we are to others in this world, however far we seem.

“When the only images children see are white ones…as
long as children are brought up on gentle doses of racism
through their books… there seems to be little chance of
developing the humility so urgently needed for world
cooperation.”
-Nancy Larrick, 1965
Sliding Doors for all…

Schools, libraries, parents, grandparents, booksellers, publishers and reviewers must therefore not brand these books as “Great for South Asian Kids”. Because they are universal in their appeal – both to South Asians and to the rest of the world. How else will a child find out about life outside their town, city and country?

Read about why we need public libraries and these must be curated by professionals who understand Equity in the Library.

Schools, libraries, parents, grandparents, booksellers, publishers and reviewers must not only embrace if they want diversity in their reading – but also if they don’t want it. What if your community or school or customer base is monochrome? Then how would you show your world that the universe is a bigger place than what they can see and perceive?

Absolutely make it available in communities where South Asian readers live. But don’t forget it to bring it to readers who have not ventured beyond safe reading choices.

As the fabulous John Burningham once said, 
"Children are not less intelligent, they’re just less experienced."

So let’s give our children a varied, rich and wide experience of things around the world. So they grow up to be citizens of the world embracing people from all backgrounds.

Elli Woollard wrote a poem to go with this post and she has given me permission to reproduce it here.

Diversity by Elli Woolard

Prayag Kumbh Mela 2019

The Kumbh Mela is a confluence of people, beliefs, stories and rivers. The Prayag Kumbh Mela is the special one where people come to seek blessings at the confluence of three rivers.

Find out more about Kumbh Mela here.

This year, on the day of Makara Sankaranthi, 15th Jan 2019, the festival of harvest and the day when the sun enters the next astrological sign, marks a day of charity.

To mark this occasion, and to introduce conversations at home and schools about this festival, get your hands on this story about Farmer Falgu.

Illustrated by Kanika Nair and published by Karadi Tales in India & Red Robin Books in the UK, this is a story about rivers, fortitude and charity. Just like the festival.

 

Happy Pongal 2019

This weekend marks the start of the Harvest Festival across India. Called Pongal Pandigai in Tamil Nadu, where I come from, it’s also celebrated as Sankaranthi across the country.

India’s harvests are monsoon dependent. In the North, the harvests are scheduled twice a year – one for summer and one for spring. However in the South, the harvest festival is celebrated to mark the entry of sun into the house of Capricorn, ie, it begins its northern ascent for six months before dipping again.

On this day, we celebrate by making Pongal, the boiling of new rice, fresh from the harvest and making sugar pongal (a rice pudding made out of rice and jaggery) and rice pongal which is savoury (which my brother-in-law calls stodgy rice much to our amusement and his peril). The sugar is also a seasonal element here as the harvest of sugarcane is reaped in January too.

It is my total belief that my mum makes the best pongal ever. However if you’re looking for authentic south Indian recipes for these, check out this.

Tamils, the people of Tamil Nadu from the south of India, wherever they are in the world, whether they had migrated thousands of years ago or have emigrated recently, celebrate this festival.

The festival is celebrated over four days and is based on the assumption that most Tamils live in villages, work on the farms and they subsist through the land. Therefore the day after harvest, they have more expendable cash and time.

The first day is called Bhogi – the day the family gets ready for the festival. They get rid of old things and furnish their house with new things, paint their house and get ready for the festival. It did create an unhealthy habit of burning stuff on the streets which I’m told is no longer encouraged.

The second day is the celebration of the Pongal festival. With sugarcanes, milk and rice boiling in bronze pots and prayers to the sun god, this day is a wonderful celebration of hardwork and toil on the land especially in regions that do not have perennial rivers and the farmers live by chasing dark clouds of the monsoon.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thiagupillai

The third day of the celebration is dedicated to the cattle that help the farmers on the farm. It’s called Mattu Pongal – and the bulls are washed and their horns decorated. In some parts of the state, a bull-chasing ceremony is organised. Extremely dangerous yet very characteristic of the culture for thousands of years, Jallikattu as it’s called, has come under modern scrutiny.

Now, that all festivities are done, it’s time to spend that money from the harvest. So the fourth day is celebrated as Kaannum Pongal, where people go on family outings to fairs, movies, seasides, parks etc. As India and especially Tamil Nadu is home to one of the biggest cinema industries in the world, this day marks the release of popular movies of the year too.  This day families get together and enjoy spending time together. In our families, this is a day to honour and pray for siblings wherever they are, by offering coloured rice to the crows.

Farmer Falgu however is not from the south. He’s from Rajasthan and he too celebrates the harvest but differently. Being a farmer, the festival of Sankaranthi is extremely significant for him. In Rajasthan on the day of the outing, everyone flies kites and mark the day of the kite festival. It would be remiss not to celebrate a festival full of colour and joy and that’s what we’ve done in this book Farmer Falgu Goes Kite-Flying. Illustrated by Kanika Nair and published by Karadi Tales in India and the US, Red Robin Books in the UK, it’s the perfect book for little ones this harvest season.