It was two years or more ago, that a friend of ours at Bookworm suggested we take stories and books to a boys home. This, like most of our work was a new idea and deserved consideration.
So, we began tentatively to explore the possibility. We scheduled a date and time and began. We need not have been tentative because the story prevails. The first session itself had the boys enthralled even if they had to be reminded about listening in parts, sharing in bigger parts, thinking and speaking most of all.
It is now over 60 sessions later, two calendar years have passed and I was back at the site to hear our library educators, Shraddha and Anandita present a review to the team there. As I walked up the drive I was greeted warmly by one young man. He said “I remember the story you told ( it WAS two years ago) we did some painting after that and we sat there “. From the depth of my foggy memory I pulled out an early session I had done using a book called Raindrops by Vaishalli Shroff, pictures by Ruchi Mahsane, and the paint splatter work we created after as window dressings. I was reminded about the power of the story and this Margaret Atwood quote, “You’re never going to kill storytelling because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.”
I settled into the room with the administrative staff of the centre to listen to the presentation. Shraddha and Anandita are the kindest, most thoughtful and organised girls at Bookworm. They are my quiet joy. If I am too much in their presence they tremble and quiver but do brilliantly on their own with my distant gaze. So I sat to gaze upon these young professionals who have made story sharing their professional life.
They had organised their presentation around the bricks and mortar of our sessions. What do we do , why and how children respond. They had included beautiful photographs of each component to provide visual hooks and shared deeply about their struggles, joys and hopes for the centre. As the management team listened actively, observed the extension activity books they realised that these two hourly sessions every week with a group of boys is more than just listening to stories.
There was agreement without any need for discussion merely from sharing, that stories are our primary tools for learning. That they bring order and imagination into our day, that they remind us about ourselves and enable us to look beyond. That the practice of story telling through the library sustains and endures.
Without any need to ask, the gentleman incharge offered the team a more practical and consistent space, the Counsellor understood why breaks and absences may not be in the young boys interest and the care giver was sympathetic to the need to provide some follow up conversations around books even when the library teachers are not in the house. It was one of those rare but not impossible moments when a window of possibility presents itself. We were all focussed on the one goal – giving the boys in this home the best library experience they could get and making story a part of their lives.
Someone said , “Stories create community, enable us to see through the eyes of other people, and open us to the claims of others.” We were there when this happened and it was good !