Asila…Basila…Uthila.. and a Storytelling Session

all ears 🙂

Asila…Basila…Uthila…which means Ohh, you are coming, Ohh, you are sitting and Ohh, you are going.. became a hilarious lesson in Odia for the tiny tots who had gathered for a storytelling session on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

As the adults around were busy watching our Men-in-Blue on the field, our dear author and a wonderful storyteller Mrs.Kanchan Bannerjee, kept the little ones mesmerized by stories written and illustrated by members of a tribal community in Orissa. The storytelling session was organised by Pratham Books and held during the Children’s Literature Festival 2015 by Indus Early Learning Center at RMV Stage 2, in Bangalore.

The afternoon session saw children and parents gather to listen to the story of Samu whose love for words in a new language proved very useful for him.This hilarious tale was made more interesting for kids,when they were asked to perform actions on the three words Samu learnt. Yes, you guessed it right..Asila…Basila…Uthila….
Another story that Mrs.Bannerjee told the eager listeners was about how humans learnt to grow so many different types of crops, from our title ‘What should Soma grow?‘. The kids could identify most of the crops and were fascinated to know how they came into being.

The session ended with Mrs.Bannerjee discussing the number of officially recognized languages in India and asking the kids to identify as many as they can. The kids knew many, and a few more, thanks to the stories they heard in these languages : Tribal languages of Juanga,Kui,Munda and Saura all of which are written in the Odia script.