It’s not just one incident that makes us human. Rather many incidents and situations in life bring out the humanity in us, agreed a bunch of storytellers at a special session at the Cafe Coffee Day Square recently. The topic of the session was ‘The Day I Became Human’.
While there have been countless storytelling sessions that have been conducted for children in the past couple of years, this is the first such session to be organised for adults, confided Eric Miller, director of the World Storytelling Institute and organiser of the session.
He added that this method of storytelling for the adults had become a sort of culture in the West, where storytelling for adults by adults was a means of socialisation.
Professional storyteller Jeeva Raghunath kickstarted the session with her wonderful voice modulation, strong facial expressions and gestures. She narrated how she became a storyteller, which was the point when ‘she became human’. “After teaching for 20 years, the day when I realised storytelling was myself, was the one of the best days,” she said.
The story of Sudha Uma Shankar, a freelance journalist followed. She shared an anecdote about her school days, when her honesty before her Principal in accepting her fault resulted in a big hug instead of a scolding.
However, it was the third storyteller for the day, Sandhya Ruban who said, “It is not just one incident that makes you human,” and shared few moments from her life. One of her most unforgettable memories was about a little orphan boy who gifted her an ordinary ring while she was leaving from an orphanage
Participants from the audience were also invited to speak. M Pandiarajan shared how he advises people to quit bad habits and gets taunts most of the time. Viji, who is an HR coordinator, shared her story about the bond between family members. The session concluded with an interesting narration by Renuka on wants – “Beware of what you want, you may get it.”
By the end of the session, everyone was touched and probably were already looking forward to the next storytelling session for Christmas titled ‘The Best gift I Ever Received’.