Sowbhagyhya has done Pooja here for Mahalakshmi and one or two other goddesses.
now at home
Tag: South India
Cycling and walking, sharing waves and smiles on….
Who’s a storyteller?
Here’s two things that maybe of interest to storytellers:
1 resources, links, information that maybe useful and entertaining
2 what it is and why it’s important.
But before I get to that I wish to declare: I’m a writer and storyteller. How do I know?
I have writer’s block so I must be a writer 🙃 😉
I have shared my writings (through our sites) for eight years with people from around the world (a handful in England, at least one in Canada, some in India, and a smattering in Australia, Europe, Europe and US.) I didn’t say there were many but at least one reader on every continent, except Antarctica. I now plan to give more attention to writing stories.
I’m also a storyteller, as I believe we all are. It’s only recently though that I’ve realised how much I have shared stories. The first training and puker presentations I gave we’re in my early twenties. I’ve done it lots but was it any good?. 🙃🙂😉 I’m not the judge.
I have a particular problem. The English will joke that as I’m from North England I don’t know proper English whether written or spoken.
Any way back to the two things:
1. Recently, I’ve joined a lovely group: the Mysore Storytelling Network (MSN) who organise events and are a great source of information and help. They are on Instagram. Great group, check them out.
An ex-president of a fanciful country far far away and his wife Michelle like stories.
I’ve also read stories for children during lockdown. They are on this site listed as storytime. Here’s a couple: wonky donkey and a different take on Snow White for others just search
A good friend Victoria sent details of storytelling near where she lives in London . A serious training school with some great descriptions about what it’s all about at the school of storytelling and Storytelling clubs, examples are the crick crack club and story circle
2. What is storytelling? We will, of course, have different views. Here’s a start.
Stories are for entertainment, they enliven, enrich, make us think, stop us in our tracks bring us together, help us manage conflict or disagreement and because it’s sharing and helping connect they create communities. They might be written or spoken and can reinforce, change, adapt people’s behaviour, stimulate interest and stir us to act, or maybe just reflect, learn and have fun.
They introduce and reinforce beliefs, that enable us to relate to each other, without that where would we be?
What do you think?
Otherwise
Other and wise
There’s so many examples of the negativeness of the ‘other’ in society and politics.
Before the time of virus, people would cross the road to avoid walking by my black dog Lucie. It’s a cross-cultural fear.
Now in the time of virus they’re as likely to walk across the road because of me.
Recently, I was cycling on a local road busy with people doing their early morning exercise walk. A woman on the opposite side of the wide road lifts her Sari to cover her mouth on seeing me, a white foreigner. The Indians walking next to her had not been seen as a risk.
She didn’t know better but at the very least, it’s annoying.
The negative other.
Later that day three young children, sitting astride a wall laughing, smiling giggling, waving to me, a wonderful hello.
Shortly afterwards a man pushing a cycle gave a smile and wave.
The positive other
This took me back fifteen years to my first visit.
I came to India and christened it the land of a billion smiles and then I fell in love with and married Manjula, a woman with a billion smiles.
We find what we look for….
Now Manjula is my guru
I spread her smile with a friendly wave.
We might however at this ‘time of virus’ need to look a little closer to spot the smiling eyes shining above the face mask .
This was my story at today’s meeting of the Mysore Storytelling Network. A great new group for me of mostly young things. 🙂🙃😉
Sally
Sally is one of those guests that you’ve no idea when they first arrived and keep popping up so much you wonder if they ever leave. She’s clearly become besotted by India.
Sally is a creative who works in broadcast media in the UK on one of the most iconic soaps as Costume Designer. But can turn her hand to many things: design, textiles, writing, costume making, continuity, tours, and her beautiful home and garden, all while supporting her mum.
I’ve lost count how many times she’s been to visit and has now set up her own business providing carefully curated textile travels in south India. She’s also on Facebook and as Textile Travels
On Manjula’s first holiday to the U.K. we had an amazing adventure with Sally and her partner Mike in a narrowboat adding travel along the canal to Manjula’s list of great experiences in our all too short time together.
We have a lot in common, not least that we both recently lost our loved ones. Recently she’s taken the lead in helping us design a patchwork quilt and appliqué banner from Manjula’s clothes that will soon appear at Mysore Bed and Breakfast.
I look forward to her return and the way she’s going think she’ll spend more and more of her year in India.
Sally is a diamond gal (what does that mean Stephen? Your writing is supposed to be improving – the gentler Ed) officially now ‘family’ and has joined those who’ve returned here to provide incredible support over the most difficult time in my life.
Thank you Sally
Test form
Here’s my coronavirus test form. The name’s wrong but that’s to be expected, it’s listed that I have symptoms when I don’t (a contact, my neighbour, tested positive so that’s why I’m here) and I had throat and nasal swabs, again not properly indicated on the form.
We’ve not been informed when the results will come through.
I’ve now discovered that my neighbours samples were originally lost so it was almost a week before he got his positive results and taken to hospital.
If only I’d learn
People, mainly men are gathering on the street corner.
One is clearly very senior. I can tell from the way he’s bossing everyone around and then he turns to me. Instructions spew forth.
For a moment I forget I’m in India. I ask who he is. He refuses to tell me. Name? ID? He orders me into my house.
I slowly begin to recall I’m in a land where civil servant doesn’t mean civil and doesn’t involve service. It symbolises I’m above you, do as I tell you and don’t question.
The reason for all this?
Our neighbour has tested positive for the virus so our street is now closed off, clamped down and we’ve been tested.
I understand the situation and will comply with the restrictions because it’s for our common good but why do we have to tolerate this sort of attitude?
I need to know my place. Coming from northern working class England where we don’t do deference isn’t easy and is no preparation for this.
I could say it’s this sort of attitude —, (I’ve saved you the tedious details), the hierarchy, do as your told, no questions asked — that helps lead to authoritarianism. But then I look in western countries. I include the US and UK where we’re brought up to challenge and officials can be quite a lot nicer but still we have to tolerate tin-pot dictators.
Where are you Manjula? I need you
Why does the foreigner
Save that old stuff
The neighbours think I’m bonkers and a joke.
Art work from every place in India is throughout the house. They can sort of understand that, but it’s not practical or functional.
Why save the wooden wheels, the cart sides, painted chairs?
I remember as a child, the horse drawn wagons, workshops repairing wheels and tailors in every town. They’ve all gone now.
We still have them here but they’ll go. In the eight years of mycycle tours the number of wooden ox carts being made at the workshop we visit has decreased by over eighty percent.
Hopefully some will recognise what is happening and work to preserve the heritage…, fab city, life affirming trees, characterful market, .. beautiful colourful women, skilled artisans there so much wonderfulness. , Otherwise in future years the neighbours will remember the crazy foreigner and realise he was right and understand what they’ve lost.
New things
My good friend Faizan introduced me to the Mysore Storytelling Network. A lovely group of people working to promote storytelling. I’ve joined a couple of their meetings to help where I can in creating the foundation. Here’s our last agenda.
I’ll try develop a reading and storytelling project as an example of MAnjula giving.
Here’s why the New Yorker think this is important:
“Storytelling is the oldest form of entertainment there is. From campfires and pictograms—the Lascaux cave paintings may be as much as twenty thousand years old— to tribal songs and epic ballads passed down from generation to generation, it is one of the most fundamental ways humans have of making sense of the world. No matter how much storytelling formats change, storytelling itself never gets old.
Stories bring us together. We can talk about them and bond over them. They are shared knowledge, shared legend, and shared history; often, they shape our shared future. Stories are so natural that we don’t notice how much they permeate our lives. And stories are on our side: they are meant to delight us, not deceive us—an ever-present form of entertainment.”
From New Yorker 6th July
All Change
Part One
Our Garden has been a wonderful addition to the home we share through Mysore Bed and Breakfast. It’s been a memorable part of our life.
todays
team shifted the plants to the ground floor
the owner of the house has arranged to resurface the roof as after nearly forty years and a garden for ten it’s letting water in.
He’s understandably nervous of the plants going back on the roof. It took six of us around four hours to shift them. So we have a new arrangement.
I can feel the nervous worry of guests around the world.
Don’t worry, we’ll have it ready soon and Madam is keeping an eye on things.
The work continues
over the next few months we’ll have three smaller more intimate super gardens and Manjula’s stone benches in the park opposite.
Me and MYCycle 