Festival of storytelling begins in Bhubaneswar

BHUBANESWAR: Day one of the five-day storytelling festival, BhuFeSto, saw people from all walks of life — especially children — listen to international and national-level professional raconteurs at Buddha Jayanti Park in Niladri Vihar area, Kharvel Park at Khandagiri and Indira Gandhi Park near the state Secretariat. Five storytelling sessions are conducted simultaneously every day, from 2.30 pm to 7.30 pm, in the parks.
One of the kids’ favourites was Argentina’s Paula Martinwho played the charango on the stage at Buddha Jayanti Park. Martin sang, acted, and told stories complete with sound effects. “I saw a similarity between the stories from Argentina and the Panchatantra tales of India,” said Martin, who has been telling stories for 30 years in various parts of the world.
Another storyteller Lopamudra Mohanty said stories can be used to inspire children to be themselves. Sabrina Arusam from France used a unique human puppet to tell her stories at Indira Gandhi Park. The sign language storytelling session hosted by Nita Gopalakrishnan and Deepa Kiran at the park had an audience of around 200 deaf children.
Ravindra Kumar had an impromptu quiz for the kids at Kharvel Park while Vividha from Indore told funny stories about Molla Nasiruddin.