A story telling session of Katha Kathan was held in Mumbai on Friday evening to commemorate the birthdays of Rabindranath Tagore and Saadat Hasan Manto with a recitation of their renowned works.
The warmth of literature is truly overpowering. One could sense the excitement in the audience while they waited to enter the YB Chavan auditorium in Mumbai on Friday, but not more than the performers themselves, who had a sparkle in their eyes as they looked forward to the storytelling session for the evening.
Katha Kathan is a platform for storytelling that converts works of literature into spoken word narration. The main aim of the venture is to revive Indian language literature that is often relegated to the background.
Katha Kathan's aim to keep the legacy of Indian literature alive. Image Courtesy: Vritti Issar
An initiative by Jameel Gulrays, Katha Kathan was launched with the aim of giving a better platform for literature in regional languages. “I worry that our Indian languages will just become dialects,” says Gulrays, adding that the country has not been able to furnish more writers who produce works in different Indian languages. The fact that most young people today cannot fluently read or write in their own mother tongue, owing to the mammoth influence of English, is a matter of concern, he believes. Although not opposing the importance of English, Gulrays appeals for the conservation and continuation of Indian languages.
In an effort towards this, Gulrays began to upload videos on his YouTube channel wherein he reads out certain stories so as to preserve them digitally. He has uploaded more than 450 videos till date.
In the fifth session of Katha Kathan on Friday, Rabindranath Tagore and Saadat Hasan Manto’s stories were chosen deliberately because they were both born in the same month, May 7 and May 11, respectively.
The storytelling kick-started with the Marathi version of Manto’s ‘Taraqqi Pasand’, followed by the Urdu version for the same. Tagore’s 'Kabuliwala' was narrated first in Bengali and then once more in Hindi.
The Hindi version of 'Kabuliwala' by Tagore being recited. Image Courtesy: Vritti Issar
Even if they did not completely understand a particular language, the performers’ commendable skills made sure that listeners did not lose touch with the story. One could see the audience reacting to the change in tone of the narrators, which culminated into a beautiful experience where everyone was immersed in the joy of listening to a literary masterpiece.
The upcoming sessions of Katha Kathan will involve works of Munshi Premchand and more of Manto's stories that showcase how he wrote proficiently across genres, in what Gulrays mentions as 'The Other Side Of Manto'.
Katha Kathan is indeed a delight for literature lovers and it's heartening to see the team striving to keep the legacy of India's literary icons alive in a world which is perhaps forgetting them too fast.
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