In Search of Katha — Celebrating the Power of Story in India

That’s probably the most popular request of all time, in any language, in all parts of the world. Everyone craves a good story — to tell our own and hear others’ — as a way of affirming, challenging and shaping the meaning of life.

Stories speak to our need to know what happens next — to reflect on that which roots us to the earth and spins us out into the abstract of being human. Stories unite, teach, bind, warn, inform, transport, enlighten and entertain us. And we need them to survive. The act of simply telling our stories provides evidence of having lived a life here on Earth — story as declaration — politic — protest.

As a poet, I was born in search of story. With a jazz-piano-playing father and a mother who spins trash into treasure, I learned to turn stories inside out, to play with language and as a way of shaping meaning out of what sometimes feels meaningless. My love of stories led me to Chicago’s classrooms, where, as a teaching artist in Chicago Public Schools, I encourage young people to search for their own stories through the creation of original poetry, movement and performance.

Immersed in this work, I became curious about the way in which story manifests itself in arts integration and education around the world. What does story look like in other cities, in other classrooms? In what ways do writers and artists use story as a tool for global social change? How does story play a role in community development and progressive education reform?

And that’s when I found out about the Katha Institute of New Delhi, India (right here in CAN’s margins!).

Katha — the acclaimed story institute and literary publishing house located in India’s capital of New Delhi, is as kaleidoscopic as India herself. The 15-year-old literary-arts organization, whose name literally means “story” in Hindi, embraces storytelling as one of the most essential acts of all time. As a nonprofit organization, it works in the areas of story, storytelling, culture linking and education. Ambitious in scope and vision, Katha boasts an ever-expanding array of programs and projects, all of which strive to “understand life through stories and get back to life through stories,” says Manish Kumar Halder, teaching artist.

After researching Katha for more than a year, including a near daily perusal of their alluring website (www.katha.org), created and designed by visionary Executive Director Geeta Dharmarajan, I fell in love with its overwhelming belief in the power of story as the antidote to oppression and inequality. In a country where the caste system still imposes very stringent societal roles and expectations, Katha has, since its inception, reached out to everyone — the disenfranchised as well as those in the upper echelons — to bridge differences through story.

As a poet, I admired Katha’s very own in-house publishing wing, dedicated to both emerging and established Indian writers and translating work from India’s vast array of more than 90 languages. Their innovative literary programs in Delhi schools and community centers intrigued me. And as an arts-integration advocate, I was inspired by their Center for Creativity in Education — what could be a more promising name?

Overall, what attracted me most to Katha was its unabashed devotion to imagination.

In late January of 2003, I began an e-mail conversation with Madhavi Sharma, Katha’s senior projects coordinator and assistant team leader of workshops, declaring my interest in connecting with Katha as a kindred spirit. Madhavi’s warm notes flung through cyberspace affirmed a receptive community of artists at Katha. When she suggested I present at their upcoming storytelling festival, “Forging Identities, Linking Diversities,” in January of 2004, I knew I had to find a way to India.

Beyond bangles and bindis, saris and sadhus, vegetarian buffet and spiritual tabla-techno, I honestly knew very little about India. But I felt certain that I could make myself at home in a place where artists, writers and storytellers have been celebrated since the beginning of time — where there’s even a goddess of Arts and Education — Saraswati — looking over all of us around the world.

After months of saving and fundraising, I finally had a ticket tucked between the books on my bookshelf. That December, I flew to Delhi with my older sister, Nina Joy Lichtenstein, who eagerly agreed to attend the festival with me and present some puppet and envelope-making workshops.

We arrived at midnight, dazzlingly disoriented by how far we traveled in such a short period of time. Armed with art supplies and a ton of theater and writing ideas, we walked through a hazy immigration area, curious about all the smoke in the air. A guard reassuringly explained that the smoke came from small fires made in an attempt to stay warm.

Amidst the haze and smoke, I felt transported to another world. Signs in Hindi perplexed me. Lines leading to the immigration booths zigzagged throughout the wide room. We faced a barrage of forms and paperwork. As I waited in line after line, I soaked in the immediate differences. Saris outnumbered Levis. Turbans far outnumbered baseball caps. The smell of smoke and incense filled the air. And fluorescent lights dutifully flickered above my head, threatening to go out at any moment.

Manish, one of Katha’s premier teaching artists, greeted me at the gate. At the young age of 22, Manish, puppeteer, painter, theater artist and storyteller, had taken over Madhavi’s duties as coordinator of the children’s festival due to sudden changes in Madhavi's life. Manish was my faithful e-mail contact during the months leading up to my arrival. Though we’d never seen each other before, I recognized him right away and we hugged like long-lost friends. We stared at each other for a moment in disbelief. Then, in his wonderfully determined, excitable way he declared, “Come! Let’s go!” and shuffled us out of the terminal and into a waiting van.

Katha, situated in South Delhi along the wide-open boulevard of Sri Aurobindo within Sarvodaya Enclave, takes pride in its affiliation with the spiritual center next door that bears the same name — Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Manish arranged for us to stay at the ashram during the festival and we headed straight there from the airport, stopping once to grab some juice boxes at a tiny kiosk tucked into a corridor of other small shops. I noticed the presence of Hindu gods right away — ornate, colorful posters of Krishna, Vishnu, Laxmi, Ganesh and others bedecked with garlands of real marigolds.

Even at midnight, we faced a tangled mass of classic Delhi-style traffic. As we inched our way through throngs of rickshaws, bicycles, motorbikes, vans, buses and cars, Manish and I had a lively conversation about the arts and literary activism. He spoke eloquently about the power of story and spoke optimistically about change that’s bound to happen in society if we keep on telling our stories. His warm smile, his lively conversation, his faith in humanity and his wonderful laugh all foreshadowed the kind of spirit manifested during the entire festival.

Manish’s words echoed what I had hoped for in coming to India — a belief in the universality of the work we do — the applicability of literary activism all over the world and of heralding imagination as a central and critical force in progressive education reform.

Delhi — its tentacles of sensory overload, its labyrinth of crowded spaces, its bustling markets, vibrantly diverse people, its superior museums, awe-inspiring history and architectural conundrums — could make even the most experienced traveler dizzy and confused. Delhi is a city of extreme contrast — rich and poor, progressive and traditional, modern and ancient. Literally comprising eight cities in one, it is considered by historians to be one of the oldest “living cities,” whose area has been settled for over 2,900 years. Some argue that nearly 11 to upwards of 14 million people call Delhi their home. That’s nearly four times the population of Chicago. And this bustling population shares just 15,000 square kilometers of space. People move shoulder-to-shoulder through the streets, crowding onto public transport and packing the intricate, colorful markets. Life pours onto the sidewalks and city centers as men stop curbside for a morning shave, women stop to shop for fruits and vegetables at the countless stalls and makeshift stands, everyone stops to enjoy a bit of beetle wrapped in leaves or to sip a cup of chai.

Delhi speaks 18 official languages, with over 1,600 minor languages recorded as well. Eighty percent of Delhi’s population identifies as Hindu while Muslims make up an 11% minority population. As in the rest of India, Delhi’s religious life is made visible through public temples and small shrines on street corners as well as boastful, stunning temples and mosques dating back thousands of years.

The British captured Delhi in the 1800s, and by 1911 Delhi was India’s capital city, the country’s most extensive “dry port” through which myriad products were bought, sold and traded in Delhi’s sprawling, narrow markets. The British built a “new” Delhi with wide, paved roads, marking a significant difference between the Old Delhi, with its crowds and markets, and New Delhi, with its expansive diplomats’ mansions and large, manicured lawns.

Delhi was torched in 1936 during the trauma of Partition. In a matter of weeks, it was transformed from a Muslim city of 150,000 to a Hindu city of nearly two million. In the past ten years, the population in Delhi has increased by 50 percent, causing severe overcrowding, traffic congestion, housing shortages, health and sanitation crises and air pollution. The city emits 1,000 tons of pollution per day, with 70 percent of it attributed to traffic emissions. In Delhi, 3.5 million urban poor live in slums, resettlement colonies and on the streets. Recent statistics report that more than 18 percent of Delhi’s children engage in hard labor in order to help sustain their families.

Katha lives and breathes within this urban context, striving to empower, enlighten and educate through the power of story. It celebrates the artistic, cultural, architectural, historical, linguistic and religious diversity of Delhi while striving to confront the social stresses and inequalities faced by a city of such contrast and rapid growth.

On my first full day in Delhi, I stepped into Katha’s offices at 9 a.m. and the airy, earthy, sun-soaked design of the building took my breath away. Manish introduced me to the extensive staff of 130 writers, graphic designers, accountants, teachers, puppeteers, editors, public relations and media specialists, artists, receptionists, workshops coordinators and others working hard on all four floors. After many excited conversations with the staff, including Executive Director Geetaji (the ji suffix attached to show a sign of respect) Dharmarajan, I determined that Katha embodies a bold aesthetic, set on challenging and transcending the boundaries of progressive education through the power of story.

The energy at Katha peaked to a frenzied panic on the two days leading up to the festival, and I felt swept up in all the excitement.

Simply getting to the India International Center in South Delhi, where the festival took place, proved a feat worthy of explanation. Hailing an auto-rickshaw in Delhi overwhelmed amateurs like us. It took us nearly three tries to plow through language barriers while negotiating the price of the ride. After a chilling journey in the open-aired rickshaw, inhaling the exhaust and fumes from buses and other rickshaws, we arrived at the festival, where the signs for “Forging Identities, Linking Diversities” took everyone’s attention.

With some time to spare before my first workshop, Nina and I walked around the expansive, lush gardens of the IIC and marveled at the delicious greenery and mod architecture. A heavy fog hung low in the sky and a chill in the air inspired us to wrap ourselves more tightly in our woolen shawls, which we quickly discovered was the style in Delhi during the cold months.

All morning, Katha staff greeted the writers, teachers, artists, students, children, filmmakers and photographers who had traveled from all over India and different parts of Europe to partake in the festival. The festival comprised many different components — an international film festival, a children’s film festival, literary panel discussions, creative-writing workshops, poetry and fiction readings and the children’s festival, Birbal Ka Bada Mazaa, which attracted nearly 750 children from all over Delhi, surrounding villages and towns.

That first morning was chaotic and frenzied, with children milling around, talking, laughing and interacting with a stilt-walker wearing striped rainbow pants and a top hat. With more than 100 different sessions to choose from, ranging from experimental theater, Indian dance, mask making and language games to painting, active dreaming, magic, debate and puppetry, children could indulge in every opportunity to create and perform original stories.

At around 11, Manish directed me to the outdoor area where I would lead my first storytelling workshop with small children. I barely had enough time set down my bag before 15 children arrived and made a circle, eagerly waiting for instruction. I pressed my hands together in a greeting of “Namaste!” and everyone giggled. I wanted to start with the classic Name Game — giving a gesture to go with your name — but realized quickly that there was an obvious language barrier. Some children spoke perfect English while others spoke only Hindi. Luckily, a few teachers near by came to my rescue and translated for me.

We shared dream stories and then created simple gestures to go along with the dreams. We practiced specific gestures in sequence and learned to perform them while the dream-speaker conveyed the story. Aside from some painfully shy participants who seemed to giggle immediately if I even looked at them, most children told their dreams with confidence. One boy, who at first appeared shy, ended up sharing a dream about being chased and then beaten by three monsters on the street. In his dream, he had to find the courage to turn around and scream at the monsters to get away.

In my next workshop, more than 40 students joined me in one of the largest outdoor storytelling spaces set aside to do interactive theater. With such an overwhelming number of students, ranging from ten to 17 years old, I tried to structure the workshop so that everyone felt included. Again, I faced language barriers I hadn’t really considered before that moment. Some students were fluent in both Hindi and English and I quickly counted on them to translate. We found our way into a huge circle and engaged in an interactive theater warm-up using our minds, bodies and voices. We created shapes with our bodies that reminded us of Delhi and also created group sounds that echo the city.

I led them through a sculpture exercise in which one actor must “sculpt” a partner into a shape inspired by a word, phrase, thought, or piece of text. In this case, Delhi “street scenes” were the inspiration. We created group sculptures of urban life and then stepped through the “exhibition,” creating stories inspired by these body sculptures. The street scene consisted of sadhus (India’s holy men, quintessentially sitting with legs crossed in meditation), two fine statues of the Qutab Minar (a famous Muslim landmark), a pair of crows sitting on fences, fruit and flower sellers and business people on their way to work. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to write our stories down — instead, we reconvened in a circle and told stories based on the different sculptures we created.

The next day, I facilitated two more workshops, introducing theater and writing games popular with my students in Chicago. We played “What are You Doing?” an action-packed warm-up to the interactive Snapshots game, in which players create tableaus in sequence that tell a story. Again, I met with nearly 40 children outdoors on the lawn and had the magical attention of everyone’s eager eyes, despite the overwhelming size of the group. We had the chance to perform, record and write our stories down for one another and presented our pieces at the end of the workshop, with the eager applause of teachers, parents and other children who had gathered around the space to watch us spontaneously craft our stories.

Later in the day, my sister Nina, a massage therapist and visual artist, led an envelope-making workshop and a simple puppet-making workshop while I led the writing component, with the end goal being to add text to the borders of their puppets. They wrote mythological poems about a body part that flies off their body in the middle of the night and goes on an adventure. Students wrote in Hindi and English, with the help of their teachers, who sat in on the workshop. To warm up to the idea, we did some experimental moving through space with “body leads” — isolating various body parts and exaggerating their motions to create different sensations and personalities. I asked them each to visualize a single body part that escapes in the middle of the night, and to imagine their adventures. After storytelling, Nina led them through the creation of their collage-inspired puppets. They rewrote their text onto the puppets and the end product amazed all of us.

All around us, children created, shared and engaged in the storytelling process through the visual and performing arts. Parents, teachers and activists sat around the perimeters of workshop spaces, enjoying the process and taking notes. Puppeteers from Paris, magicians from Mumbai, storytellers, painters and filmmakers made story come alive through interactive workshops, film screenings, spirited art competitions and language games.

I am positive that I missed out on 101 incredible events and workshops simply because I was overwhelmed with the intensity of my own experience. The only thing I regret is not having attended more of the brilliant talks, workshops, panel discussions, films, presentations and performances aimed at celebrating stories. With more than 250 teachers, writers and educators dedicated to “the power of story in helping build a civil society,” we lived and breathed Katha’s main philosophy — to “see story as the building block for forging identities, linking diversities.”

Beyond the festival, Katha’s commitment to progressive education and social change resonates throughout every program and project initiated since its inception in 1988.

Katha prides itself on a comprehensive philosophy of arts and education that encompasses all of what it means to be human. Their main mission is to “spread the joy of reading, knowing and living amongst adults and children, the common reader and the neo-literate.” As well, they aim to:

To this end, Katha’s labyrinth of programs can be sorted into three main categories:

Kalpavriksham — The Center for Sustainable Learning
KATHA Vilasam — The Story Research and Resource Center
KATHAsethu — The Bridge Builders of Katha

Under each of these categories lies a constellation of initiatives, philosophies and missions. As a teaching artist and poet, I felt most connected to Kalpavriksham — The Center for Sustainable Learning, which includes Katha Kazana, an alternative school for children living in Delhi’s largest slum cluster, and the Center for Creativity Education, which serves as a think tank for educators.

Katha does upfront what U.S. arts organizations hesitate to do — embrace the philosophical and political implications of our work in an effort to improve the quality of arts in education. Through ongoing collaboration and communication as an organization, they’ve developed philosophical and political ideas aimed at what they refer to as "sustainable education." Their intentions:

Katha joyfully recognizes the political, spiritual and philosophical implications of storytelling and of placing story at the center of a quality education.

Just days before I left India, I spent some time with Manish and Dimple Sharma, a fellow teaching artist, trying to get to know Katha programs on a more personal level. Dimple, age 30, has been working for Katha for eight months in the Workshops Department, helping to design and implement modules aimed at eliciting and promoting story as a central part of early childhood education. With a diverse background in child psychology, natural sciences and fashion design, Dimple merges all her talents and interests into engaging workshops for children.

On Friday morning, Dimple, Manish and I drove to Tiny Steps, a preschool in an upscale Delhi neighborhood, where they were scheduled to present a puppet show. Manish carried his artfully hand-painted stage in the backseat and Dimple reviewed her part of the show as we inched our way through traffic. The principal of the preschool greeted us with the traditional cup of chai in her office, and soon after, Dimple and Manish set up their show in a small, lively preschool room with plenty of windows. Manish started by clapping his hands together and announcing, “We’re going to tell some stories!” Manish and Dimple performed their show about a character who just wants to get some sleep but can’t find peace and quiet. Throughout, the children laughed and playfully mimicked the puppets’ voices. Afterward, Manish led an engaging question-and-answer session and let the children play with the puppets.

As the only two active workshop leaders at the moment, Manish and Dimple work closely together, providing hands-on training for one another by sharing ideas and developing curricula together in the office and then trying it out in the field. Dimple explained that they work at schools all over Delhi, with children of all different backgrounds, and offer packages of ten, 20 or 30 workshops depending on the interest of the school. They also conduct between four and five teacher trainings per year, offering workshops on storytelling through finger puppets, interactive theater and creative writing.

Like Manish, Dimple also believes in the significance of developing active imagination, and works mostly with preschoolers. She explains, “anybody can relate to the story — you can be anyone and have a story to tell. We learn through stories, not just knowledge, but about who we are.” Soon, though, Dimple will be taking a leave of absence to have her first child; Manish, a Katha veteran with over two-and-a-half years of experience, will be the only one working in the Workshops Department until they hire new teaching artists.

Immediately following my visit to Tiny Steps, Manish and I went to visit Katha Kazana, the premier Katha school founded by Ms. Dharmarajan more than 12 years ago to provide creative educational opportunities for children living in poverty. Katha Kazana, which means “Story Treasure” in Hindi, boasts a dedicated staff of 60 progressive-minded teachers for children in grades K-12.

This sunny, open-aired complex of creativity is situated in the middle of Delhi’s largest slum, in which Indian families from villages all over India settle while searching for work in India’s sprawling capital. More than 1,200 students attend the Katha school and many of those students served as volunteers or participants at the festival, so I recognized their inquisitive faces as I walked around its wonderful halls and centers.

At every twist and turn, children’s art and murals took my attention. Vikram Nayak, a highly accomplished young artist from Delhi, has been working as a resident artist at Katha Kazana for the last five years, teaching painting and drawing. In small classrooms, children sat in circles, engaged in creative storytelling or art-making related to age-appropriate curricula. In a state-of-the-art technology center, students sat in clusters, designing original architecture and creating their own furniture.

While walking around, I bumped into Iswar Singh, the fabulous actor and theater director who leads Katha’s theater ensemble, comprising riveting young actors trained under Iswar’s guidance. I had spent a wonderful afternoon with him and the ensemble during the festival, engaged in interactive theater exercises and meditative warm-ups. They demonstrated scenes from a Hindi version of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” singing songs that they created to go along with the story. We also played some improvisational theater games and laughed hysterically as I tried to learn some Hindi phrases. Iswar and I reconnected at the school and talked about working together in the future. That’s another thing about Katha — there’s a supreme interest in collaboration and connection, a belief in sharing knowledge and finding common ground among artists globally. Iswar and I said goodbye to each other in the hopes of meeting again one day.

As if progressive arts education and technology at Katha Kazana wasn’t enough — I also learned about their Women Empowerment Program, comprising a variety of cooperatives, such as the bakery and sewing co-ops, housed at Katha Kazana but run independently by local women and girls. During my tour of the school, I indulged in a popular Indian snack, pan pakora, deep-fried onion bread, made by one of the women in the co-op kitchen. Delicious. The women greeted me with open arms and excitedly talked about their relationship with Katha.

Katha Kazana amazed me, from its organic, sun-soaked spaciousness to its art murals on the walls, from its “community-empowering activist spaces” to small clusters of children patiently listening and engaging with their teachers. At Katha Kazana, teachers and children live out Katha’s motto that “Excellence is fun! Creativity is within everyone’s reach!” And, having walked through the slums of Delhi to reach the school, I fully comprehended how deeply Katha believes in “human dignity and the potential that each one of us has to help [humanity] grow and GROW and GROW!” Experiencing Katha Kazana made me even more conscious about creating “student-centered patterns of learning” and providing a true dialogic experience in the classroom that develops critical thinking and creativity in students.

Picture a collective of artists, writers, teachers, puppeteers and child advocates actively pursuing philosophical visions and missions on every front — boldly infusing their city with the arts — without holding back for a second. Aside from the organically grown Katha school, abounding with devoted teachers and resident artists, the Center for Creativity in Education hosts a number of different workshops on professional development and training for educators throughout Delhi and all of India. Katha has initiated think tanks to address every possible question and concern related to this work — from researching and developing creative curricula to providing in-service training to teachers. Story-related workshops in formal schools and learning centers help to spread the word. There’s also a marvelous “school on wheels” that reaches out to surrounding neighborhoods and villages through the performing arts.

Exploring Katha feels as endless as India. It’s impossible to comprehend all the wonder and power of its vision as an organization, and it would probably take many, many years to delve deep into all its layers and projects. Katha vigorously embraces the challenges of progressive education and social reform with a spirit unparalleled in my experience. Hopefully, my journey to “Forging Identities, Linking Diversities” was just the first of many trips to India. Katha immediately welcomed me into the fold as family and I believe that it's the strength of their vision coupled with their spirit as a collective that propels them forward.

An irresistible sense of activism permeates the heart of Katha, allowing its staff to believe in “uncommon education for a common good.” Most importantly, Katha comes from a resilient faith in the power of story as one of the most valuable means of social change. Within that framework, each of us as writers, teachers, poets, puppeteers and artists must see ourselves as agents of change.

Ms. Dharmarajan, the voice of Katha, asks us to consider, “Can we talk of mind and heart education in the same breath as we talk of active and passive tolerance, moving away from a debilitating mass culture to a more critical culture of holistic education that celebrates inclusion instead of exclusion?” I believe all of us in this field want to answer with a resounding “yes.”

But Katha doesn’t just stop at how. It presses us to question why. Dharmarajan offers some answers:

Because our children cannot live forever in poverty and lack quality education. Because the weak link pulls us all down. Because the heart beats in the left side of the body for most of us and we cannot stand by and watch more than half the population living in squalor, disease, illiteracy. Because the child is the future adult, responsive and responsible.

I spoke with Sushila Ojha, a college literature professor and activist at the conference, who echoed these values in a conversation on the arts and social change. She grabbed both my hands and said confidently, “Change is coming, Amanda. Change is on its way.” She paused and thought about it for a moment. “It’s through story that we have the power to change — simply a matter of listening.”

To help create a world where everyone is equal through community revitalization through story.

I hope to return to Katha Kazana one day, to make puppets with Manish, participate in a future festival, lead poetry workshops, work side-by-side with innovative Katha teachers, collaborate with Katha teaching artists, spread the word about Katha, so that I may weave myself more intricately into the power of their story.

Note: Most information about Delhi, including statistics and historical facts, were found in Lonely Planet’s Guide to India, 10th edition, August 2003, and Lonely Planet’s Guide to Delhi. I also gleaned information on Delhi from various Google searches on “Delhi Facts” and “Delhi History”. Facts about Katha were pulled directly from their website, www.katha.org, and/or from interviews with Katha staff. — A.L.L.

Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein writes poetry and creative nonfiction. She has worked as a teaching artist, designing and teaching literary and performing-arts curricula through a variety of partnerships between arts-based organizations and Chicago Public Schools. Her essays on teaching appear in Teachers and Writers Magazine and Teaching Artist Journal. Poetry and creative nonfiction appear in Another Chicago Magazine, Primavera, and Painted Bride Quarterly. In 2004 she became a master's candidate in the Arts in Education program at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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In Search of Katha — Celebrating the Power of Story in India

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