New Sense

Story telling was one of the earliest forms of art I was introduced to. In it I found my first super star, my grandmother. I remember fondly how my sister and I would huddle up around her and insist that she tells us a story. She would sit down calmly and vividly explain to us the details of the scenes and characters that we ended up falling in love with.

One of my biggest influences from this part of my life was the story of “Chandrahasa”, the mythical south Indian king whose namesake I became. Considering the importance that stories had in my life, I always considered stories as a wonderful way to reach out to people.

Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a single day workshop on story telling. The workshop was organized by Hippocampus as a part of the HOO’s Tales – Carnival of Stories. Conducted by professional story tellers, the event was a wonderful reminder about the power of stories.

Conducted by world renowned story tellers Jeeva Raghunath and Craig Jerkins, the workshop was a wonderful mix of learning an ancient art form, learning about how to communicate and reach out to children and taking a walk down memory lane listening to stories again.

With a diverse group which included teachers, parents, grand mothers and IT professionals, the workshop was wonderfully entertaining and enlightening. During its course we were ourselves made to perform and we had short discussions about what worked and why. During the course of the evening we had all woken up that hidden story teller within us and it simply felt great.

I personally believe that events like these are a must for young parents. The amount of experience and insight to be gained is enormous and who knows it might turn you into that cool parent

Ps: The Carnival of Stories continue in Chennai for the next couple of days, If you can attend the workshop. Details: Carnival Of Stories

She is the first one to greet you,
when you walk into my house.
One half of one half of a pair,
she stands calm yet morose…

The first time my mom brought the masks I knew I wanted to take a picture of them, I tried the pair and then just the one… it was something magical the way the light strayed on contact with her… something that forced you to hold your eyes and listen…

I love the optimistic look at life that Forrest Gump gave… Who knows maybe whatever choice we make in life is going to lead to little sweetness… sounds like a good philosophy to live by to me.

Sounds like a cool name for a show right? Apparently there is a show with that name. The Big Bang Theory creator Chuck Lorre uses vanity cards at the end of every show, they are like really fun blog posts where he scribbles off some of his thoughts. At the end of the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory he writes about a Belorussian version of The Big Bang Theory. (Yeah Belarus is the name a country).

He writes in the card:

Belarus does have a bustling TV production industry. One of their most recent hits is a sitcom about four nerdy scientists who live next door to a beautiful blonde waitress. The characters are named Sheldon, Leo, Hovard, Raj and Natasha, and the show is entitled, The Theorists. Each episode begins with a rapid-fire montage of images which takes us from the dawn of time to the present moment.

Here is a video clipping from the show:

Ps: I have been a big fan of the vanity cards for a while now. You can read them here: http://www.chucklorre.com/

Yesterday I was reading a short story I wrote about 5 years ago. I was amazed at how my writing has changed over time. While I hope that I write better now, there is one thing I know for sure, the past ‘me’ had unlimited spirit in writing.

Just reading through five pages of text gave enough perspective to juxtapose the twenty year old me and present me. Sadly I wasn’t too thrilled at what I saw…
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