When Pune got booked

The interviewgt Rukhsana Khan PakistaniCanadian author Rukhsana Khan 51 was at the Bookaroo Festival of Children39s Literature held last week to launch her book Wanting Mor in India Already published in six countries it is based on the true story of an abandoned Afghan girl who ended up in an orphanage in Kabul It delves on issues of loss abandonment and addiction We caught up with the Torontobased author whorsquos been writing for 24 years now and is looking forward to her twelfth book King for a Day which is set for a January 2014 release Excerpts from an interview How did you take up storytelling I grew up extremely poor in Canada It was a time of persecution and racism and I escaped my tormentors through books They were my refuge I read through the entire children39s section of my town library It helped me survive the brutal bullying of other children There was a point where I thought of committing suicide but my faith would not allow it I used the books and stories I read to get me through those difficult times I learned or read my way out of povertyu00a0When I grew up I dreamed of being a childrenrsquos author writing the kind of books I liked to read books that would do for other children what my favourite books had done for me It was while I was waiting for my book to get published it took eight years that I discovered storytelling I went to a festival in Toronto and was captivated by the storyteller on stage I knew that I could be just as good There were so many stories within my culturalexperience that lent themselves to oral tales South Asian culture is a largely oral history culture So I pursued it actively Rukhsana Khan Could you share with us a few anecdotes about the positives ofstorytelling Storytelling can reach some of the most troubled children I was once presenting stories to a school in the mining city of Sudbury Northern Ontario I encountered a 13yearold boy who had been suspended for beating up a teacher and was in trouble with the authorities I had been told this was a difficult class and yet I had no problems with discipline If yoursquore interesting enough even difficult children will behave By the end of the presentation the boy was listening as attentively as the others and even wrote an impressive storyu00a0During the storytelling assembly I saw my reflection at the window and noticed my hijab and Islamic dress I had forgotten that I dress differently according to my cultural roots The students had forgotten it too The story united us thatrsquos the power of a story Wanting Mor Rukhsana Khan Duckbill Books Rs 250 Available at leading bookstores Your books tackle issues such as addiction do children need to read such content Children need to read books that interest them Parents and educators do children a disservice when they think that children will not be interested in grittier topics Children start with light amusing books then they go for mystery and adventure and if theyrsquore hooked they start gravitating towards grittier works They read books to figure out their world and thatrsquos the role a lot of edgier books serve There will be kids who give up on books by the time they hit that stage but for those who continue theyrsquore worth the read In the news Wanting Mor won the Middle East Award in Texas and was nominated for 14 awards around the world Of all my books Wanting Mor is Khanrsquos favourite Her eleventh book Big Red Lollipop was chosen by the New York Public Library recently as one of the 100 greatest children39s books in the last 100 years u00a0 The bookaroo browser A haiku a day Contemporary haiku poet Kala Ramesh was a Hindustani Classical musician she pursued Kumar Gandharvarsquos gayaki before she turned to the 400yearold art of Japanese Haiku in 2005 She is presently the editor of the World Haiku Review in India When she started teaching haiku in 2008 there was little awareness about it Today her works feature in the CBSE curriculum and she will host a session for students of Symbiosis later this month ldquoHaiku is a form of poetry that uses the space element like ikebana and bonsai and silence It says a lot in a concise wayrdquo she says Ramesh works in genres like tanka five line poems and haibun prose embedded with haiku She admits that the advent of Twitter could have unwittingly benefitted haiku due to its limitations on characters ldquoLike any art it requires you to observe and use your senses It teaches you to edit and write concisely Haiku is slowly blooming in India though poetry doesnrsquot sell much or pay Publishers donrsquot want to touch itrdquo she rues Green poetry in bloom lsquoGreen Poetrsquo Martin Kiszko has composed and orchestrated 200 scores for film and television in the UK The author of Green Poems for a Blue Planet Kiszko observes that children understand and respond to environmental issues ldquoIt should be done in a fun way and not an lsquoecodoomedrsquo way They switch out if they are told to do too many thingsrdquo The quirky poet used props such as a crown made of cola bottles broccoli and a blue ball made from junk in his session Kiszko was always interested in wildlife and he combined his love for poetry he wrote his first poem at 10 to create green poems ldquoI wrote a poem a week and had 54 poems in a year Poetry is like sending a postcard or a text Facebook message Itis fun easy to understand and rememberrdquo ldquoThere is a humorous illustration of Antarctica in my book I was there in 2001 on a ship wearing a shortsleeved shirt we barbequed on the deck of the ship But the fact remains that there was an ozone layer problem which led to global warmingrdquo he explains In his sessions he encourages children to write on junk like plastic bottles and waste paper writing about waste on waste materials Tell me a story The Storywallahs a Bengalurubased organisation was started by Ameen Haque an advertising and theatre professional ldquoStories have great power to influence human beings Our religion customs practices choices are influenced by stories However this power of stories to entertain and influence remains underutilised I started The Storywallahs to revive storytelling as a performance artrdquo says Haque The Storywallahs narrate stories minus props with voice and body language ldquoIn its purest form the story is the hero and nothing else comes between the teller and the listenerrdquo he addsu00a0They help businesses and schools to leverage the power of stories through workshops and also tell stories at orphanages and hospitals She shares about the revival of old forms of storytelling like Villipattu a Tamil form where stories are sung and Kavaad from Rajasthani u00a0