BENGALURU: Some months ago, Lavanya Prasad, Rona Mentari, Akila Krishna Kumar, Krupa Vinayagamoorthi and Priti Modyiyer started brainstorming about a storytelling event.
While the women reside in different parts of the continent – Prasad is from Bengaluru, Mentari from Yogyakarta in Indonesia, and the other three from Singapore – they decided to take advantage of borders being blurred by the pandemic.
Now, these five women are coming together to present Maiden Moods. The storytelling event aims to explore the various emotions women undergo, through the lens of the navarasas.
“Emotions are powerful in storytelling. The underlying emotions always bring out a synergy and energy to the story. And in some cultures, women aren’t easily allowed to express their emotions. So most of our stories have strong female protagonists,” explains Prasad, who is also the founder of Talescope Bangalore, a storytelling venture. The nine emotions – love (shringaara), laughter (haasya), compassion (karuna), anger (roudra), courage (veera), fear (bhayaanaka), disgust (bheebhatsya), wonder (adbhutha) and peace (shaantha) – were divided among the women, who then looked for stories that highlight that particular feeling. Prasad, who took up bheebhatsya and shaantha, says finding a story that highlights the former was a challenge. “It’s one of the lesser explored emotions.
Finding stories related to fear or wonder is much easier. But while searching for a story I realised that it is difficult to find only one emotion in a story since multiple co-exist. It is then a teller’s strength to highlight one,” she says, adding that she finally chose a story written in the 1960s by Tamil writer CS Lakshmi. For her other story, she chose one she has narrated before, about a devadasi who finds peace in her loyalty to God.
Kumar, who is the founder of Storyberries Oral Storytelling and Crafts in Singapore, will be sharing stories that highlight wonder and anger.
“Our audience will be people from Singapore, which in itself is a multicultural place, besides India and Indonesia. So we are presenting stories from various cultures,” she says, adding that her story will have elements from historical fiction and a doze of slice of life. Some of the tellers will also add elements from their culture to the story.
Prasad will use her training as a Bharatnatyam dancer to incorporate gestures, facial expressions and mudras in her stories. Mentari, who is an Indonesian storytelling activist, will focus on a folk tale that highlights compassion or karuna. “I love to bring cultural elements in my performances, so the story itself is an authentic Indonesian folk tale. Besides that, there will be an Indonesian song as well, I always bring my ukulele when I perform,” she says. Maiden Moods will be streamed on Nov. 1 and 8, 5pm onwards on Zoom. Tickets available on Instamojo.