I grew up in a thriving reading and storytelling environment.
I listened to stories everyday, as a toddler. My mother says, I stared talking really early and used to tell stories of the Ramayana and Mahabharat to people on the train while we traveled to Chennai every year.
My father had subscribed to quite a few monthly magazines like chandamama, tinkle, gokulam etc. My grandmother would read/tell me stories from her tamil magazine 'Gnyanabhoomi', I used to love the mythological stories she told.
My father would also get me lots of foreign publications from 2 raddi shops in Pune....I used to wait for that. Every Saturday evening would be an addition to my book collection.
My Mama who stayed with us for a brief period inculcated regular reading. He had a membership at the local library near our home. I used to get mesmerized by his speed at reading. I used to silently challenge myself to finish reading books as fast as he did. There, I was introduced to Tintin & Asterix. Hardly understood much in Grade 4 but developed an interest to read.
The mystery behind the jalebi shaped alphabets and all my relatives reading so many magazines and novels intrigued me to learn tamil. My cousin who visited Pune for 5 days when I was in Grade 5 taught me the alphabets and encouraged me to read Tamil. Today, though slowly, I can manage to read tamil and enjoy some short stories.
My marathi teacher at school helped me discover the love for this language. She made the whole experience of learning marathi fun. I slowly started picking out marathi books as well and today, I can say, my marathi today, is as good as my mother tongue.
In class 8 during my summer vacations, I decided to open a library at my apartment community hall. I had my best friend to support me in this venture. We got hold of an old wooden shelf from the dumpster and I got all my books to display. I had 3 sack full of books. Bubbling with excitement, we numbered and labelled the books, made a register and charged each member a fee of Rs 2 :) for borrowing books and kids were also welcome to sit in the hall and read. It was the most wonderful experience to see everyone enjoy reading. Ofcourse it didn't last too long. One morning when we opened the hall, all my books were gone! They were all stolen. I cried over the HUGE loss but my dad encouraged me to look beyond the incident and start my collection once again.
10 years after this incident, I was taking a walk with my parents on the MG Rd walking plaza. It was a novel concept developed by the Pune, Camp Cantonment of keeping the entire road vehicle free on weekend evenings and let people walk around and have fun. While chatting with my parents, I thought, why not tell stories to children right here. The motive to promote storytelling and develop reading among children could be achieved right there.
There I was, this idea in my head, I headed to the Cantonment office the next day. Made a presentation on the idea and was lucky enough to have a small article in the papers the next day.
LET ME TELL YOU A STORY was born, on 13th May 2006.
There has been no looking back ever since.
Working with NGOs, schools, teachers, street urchins, woman's welfare associations, blind school, LMTYAS has always taught me something new everyday.
So I say, There's a lot you can hear by listening.
