NewZNew (Chandigarh) : After a hectic but satisfying first day of the 2nd Children Literature Festival 2015, today was the final day of the two day Children Literary extravaganza. A unique style of story-telling came to fore today– the ‘Museum Theatre’ form propagated by a young theatre professional Kamal Pruthi who told a story ‘Kabuliwala’ to children, dressed up in a typical Afghan style dress of the famous ‘Kabuliwala’. Said Kamal,“The form is absolutely new, fresh and an unconventional form of Storytelling. I involved the children in the activity & instead of being stationary, they moved along with me in a defined space.” Kamal plans to take the style of delivering ‘Kabuliwala’ to young audiences across the country. Kamal also held a workshop for Teachers & Parents on ‘How a Story should be told’. This workshop was well received by all concerned. Then there was Gurpreet Kaur who held a session on her book Nikoo’s Paintbrush & Rabani Garg held a session about her book Folk tales-Stories of the World. In an interesting session Author Mathangi Subramanian interacted with kids on her book Dear Mrs Naidu.
Workshops were quite interesting. Soumya Menon’s workshop encompassed ‘Illustration in children books’, Paro Anand discussed ‘Writing Reality Fiction’. Mathangi Subramanian came up with ‘Dear World Writing stories in letters’. Mariam K Ahlawat’s Creative Writing workshop was a hit with kids.
Judy Balan and Manasi Subramaniam held an interactive session on Judy’s book ‘How to stop your grownup from making bad decisions’. Children participated enthusiastically and expressed their anger and frustration towards the habits of the grownups in the session ‘What would you do if one day you wake up as a parent and your parents become your kids?’
Festival Director Anita Roy’s workshop ‘Jump start your story’ and the session by Himanjali Sankar – ‘A Magnificent Superdog’ a story that she has penned down keeping in mind her pet dog Ruso.
In his concluding remarks Mr. Mitul Dikshit, Chairman, Adab Foindation & Dikshant International School, Zirakpur who were the joint organizers of the Fiesta said, ‘It was a moment of pride that we were able to put Chandigarh on the Children’s Literary map of our country. Such Festivals for children assume more importance especially now in the TV and computer age when there is reluctance on part of the children to read books. We look forward to next year and hope that the coming year too will have a good & engaging literary festival.”
