shyamala's world

Velu Saravanan is the winner of Bala Sahitya Academi award winner for Tamil literature (2017).  The prestigious award has been given for the children plays written by him.  Ira Pasi, Thanga Rani, Devalok Yanna are some of them.                                                                      Velu never reveals his age. “I died twice- once when I was pulled out of my mother’s safe womb. The other was when I was separated from my village to pursue schooling.   I write for the 12 year old in me.”  The appeasing of the 12 year old in him has not only resulted in writing and giving thousands of drama performances all across the globe.  So far he has performed all the plays he has written. The only exception being Maalumi, a play about a boy who loses everything in Tsunami and later becomes a ship captain. The horror in his book came to life when Chennai was hit by a Tsunami. He was commissioned by UNICEF's  Building Back Better program to conduct theatre workshops for

                                         ( Guest Post by Sakshi Singh)                                                         Wish. Wonder. Wander. They say you discover something new about life and yourself when you wonder and wander. I wandered off to Wales this Winter and I came back with enriching experiences and new found enthusiasm to write. New Year. New Notes. The year started on a good note when I enrolled myself for an online course in Writing as therapy – something that intrigued me and made me want to explore and learn more about the healing aspects of writing. As I was finishing the course, I realized I hadn’t had enough and I wanted to go deeper and that’s when I asked my teacher Victoria Field if there was something more advance I could pursue or come to UK for and she suggested the “Writing for health and well being program” a residential retreat in November. I wasn’t sure if I could make it as it was in the middle of the year and with writin

 Manasi Bapat, Max Mueller Bhavan Decision Making Process of Book selection among school was the title of the survey conducted recently in three Mumbai schools- Bombay International School, Diamond jubilee High school and    G.K.Marg’s municipal English school. The findings of the survey were shared at the recently concluded symposium on children's literature held by the Max Mueller Bhavan(Mumbai). The reading environment at home and school, visits to multiple displays, peer interaction, influence of librarians and parents were the social and psychological factors considered for the study conducted by the students of SHPT school of library science(Mumbai) under the guidance of Manasi Bapat( Max Mueller Bhavan) . Name of the school Bombay International School Diamond jubilee High school G.K.Marg’s municipal English school   Origins Set up by the initiative of parents Set up by the initiative of Aga Khan foundation S

Congrats on your latest play! Yet another woman’s oriented play. Is it a conscious decision or a coincidence? Very, very conscious decision! It’s funny that when a play written, directed by men that has an all male cast is made, no one calls it a ‘male - oriented’ play, but when a play directed by a woman that has several important women characters is made, it's called a ‘woman-oriented’ play. This just goes to show how deep seated our patriarchy and sexism is. I make plays that have interesting and complicated women characters, I don't want to call them ‘women oriented’ play, they are just ‘plays’ that have an equal representation of women, where women are not sidelined to ‘mom, sister, lover, wife, seductress’. Why did the play have to be a musical? It did not HAVE to be a musical. It was an artistic choice since I love music, am a singer and have acted in several musical plays. I also wanted to showcase the rich  folk music of Bundelkhand through this pl

Children’s Literature:  A Curious Case was the title of the two day symposium held by the Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai . Ingratubun Gudrun, was the first speaker of the day.   She spoke about Topics and Aesthetics of German Children’s and Youth Literature by adults and children. Mumbai based children's author Katie Bagli shares her notes from the session. Germany publishes around 8000 titles of children’s literature in a year.  What kind of subject are they portraying?  Kids want something more than reality.  Something beyond mythology and preaching. The focus is on intercultural topics so that children get to know about other countries.  One of their titles on this aspect is the recently published ‘Frau Bengali’.   Also, many of their books bring out the lives of refugees. For the very young, there are picture books that encourage children to come up with their own stories.  As an example a page from a picture book containing different types of fish was shown.