The Power of Stories
Stories connect us through memory, time, and space. Stories are how cultures preserve their ethos and their lives in words so that others may know about them, and so that they themselves, and their coming generations may rejoice, and remember. Stories are not just about the past – they are as much about the present and the future. They are the lens that help us understand our present, and prepare us for a better future. It is through stories that spaces become more than sites of events; stories make spaces come alive and become storytellers in their own right. And with these spaces, the people inhabiting them also take a leap from their situatedness to your and my world. That is the power of folk stories.
Whether oral, written, or enacted, stories sculpt children’s understanding of their social and cultural milieu from an early age. Stories and storytelling play a pivotal role in linguistic and personality development of children — nurturing empathy, building imagination and resilience, moral understanding, socio-emotional skills, self-esteem, and linguistic development, while promoting acceptance and celebration of diversity and divergence through the incredible.
It is the conviction in the power of stories, a concern about the quickly disappearing folk stories of our country, and the zest to provide a safe digital space for children for entertainment and learning that led to the emergence of the edutainment app FolkLog under the able leadership of Vandana Pant. She is a national award-winning writer and filmmaker with over 20 years of experience in media, advertising, museums, and curation of public spaces and events. While she dons several hats, storytelling lies at the heart of all her endeavors – on screens, in spaces, or somewhere in between.
FolkLog: Kidhit mein jaari
The story of FolkLog stems from a more personal space. It was a child’s quest to save her mother’s stories which over time turned into a mission to save a nation’s cultural heritage and legacy. Vandana Pant’s love for stories and storytelling emerges from a deeply personal experience, and eventually transcends it to create wholesome, meaningful and entertaining experiences for children of today. Her story is one of utilizing the tech revolution to its fullest, especially to ensure that the digital world can still remain a safe space for children while they navigate it today with increased access and reduced supervision. Tied to this is commitment to the preservation and promotion of national heritage, and instilling a sense of cultural pride in people.
Project FolkLog is Vandana’s flagship initiative to preserve Indian folk stories and has undertaken the task of collecting, translating, documenting, reimagining and archiving folk stories and performative storytelling forms from across the country. The app places value in children’s perspectives and also highlights the role of women as custodians of stories, and by extension, of cultural heritage. The project gained momentum in 2019 with the Digital First Grant by the British Council, which facilitated collection and archiving of stories from traditional storytellers.
These are shared and made available to children through the app, which allows for a multi-sensory interface for interaction. These stories can be watched, listened to, read, and also interacted with through related games. The app interface itself is bilingual, and can be accessed in Hindi and English. The Project collected over 1,100 stories, in over nine languages including Hindi, English, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Bengali, and Gujarati,
Beyond Edutainment: Festivals, Fellowships, Workshops
One of the biggest outgrowth has been the incorporation of folk art styles in the retelling of these stories. Just like the folk stories, folk art forms also find themselves being relegated into the background. And therefore, FolkLog incorporated these styles – using over 35 art forms – in the visualisation of these stories.
FolkLog has blossomed into a bouquet of allied activities over time. These include conducting of folk storytelling fellowships, festivals, workshops, storytelling sessions for schools, and international and national collaborations. The organisation has conducted online storytelling festivals ‘Logon ka Folklog’, online artist residencies through the FolkConnect Fellowship in collaboration with the British Council, as well as storytelling and craft workshops in schools across Delhi.
A bridge between the Past and the Present
The journey of FolkLog is a bridge that connects stories from multiple generations to today’s children using the advantages of the technological and digital revolution. It provides children of today the opportunity to immerse themselves in national and cultural heritage on one hand, and on the other, involves the young adults in production of said material, thus facilitating interaction for two generations. FolkLog takes into account the advancements in technology, their increased proliferation, access, and influence over today’s younger demographic. The digital world has been made a platform not to relegate the past into oblivion, but to bring it into the mainstream, in the hands of children, where it is celebrated and takes on a constructive meaning than a destructive one. It also holds within itself multiple layers of understanding – of the story itself, its geographies – the physical landscapes and ecosystems, its cultural landscapes – communities, social and political life, festivals, beliefs and practices, and the mental and psychological spaces its encompasses – in the psyche of those whose story it is, those who tell the story, and those who hear it
