Bookaroo Festival ends with fun and frolic

Bookaroo-children's literature festival, which was conducted at Mount Litera School International, Bandra-Kurla Complex ended on a high note. Theatre,craft and limerick poems took the centre stage, clubbed with storytelling sessions. Ajay Dasgupta, founder of Kahani Project and The Skills Cafe, narrated Maharashtra's folk tales and a note on Mumbai's map, by weaving it into a story and highlighting the Warli community.

"The kids read Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but are unaware of the tribes of the terrain they live in. Hence, the idea was to familiarise the kids with stories from these tribal communities and weave them into their imagination," informed Dasgupta.

Dr Kavita Gupta Merchant's clay bird session was extremely popular with the younger children, while the older children were engrossed in understanding light and shadow effect around 3D objects conducted by artist Suzzanne Rebello Naaraayan.

"I was at the Patua painting and now I am here for the Ink-possible Doodle wall session. I learnt how coordination with the others (for the huge art project) can help, which was quite a lot of fun too," said 12-year-old Anushka Bhandari.

Theatre workshops with Champa Saha, special educator and counsellor was intriguing and had participative exercises with the students. Teaching the young participants the art of body control, was the central idea. Eight-year-old Richa Ojha, explained, "This session was really great as it taught me how to act and control my body movements." Saha made them imitate objects like houses and machines and animals such as tiger, fish and snake in a creative way.