HP Printers Kahaani Festival makes its debut in Pune

This weekend, Pune city kids witnessed the magical world of storytelling with the city’s first edition of the Kahaani Festival, presented by HP Printers. A brainchild of pioneering entertainment company Teamwork Arts, the Kahaani Festival was hosted by Arthshila at the Delhi Public School in Mohammad Wadi, Pune on June 24-25 and was open for students from all across the city. The two day Festival was attended by over 6500 students accompanied by their teachers, parents as well as grandparents.

The event was inaugurated by Dadi Pudumjee, renowned puppeteer from the Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust, Vocalist and Arthshila’s Chief Curatorial Advisor Vidya Shah and Avinash Kamtikar - Area Sales Manager Maharashtra HP Printers. The inaugural ceremony itself was a spellbinding affair that gave sneak peaks into the Festival’s events, including a short story by a grandparent duo, highlighting the importance of storytelling in a child’s life.

The event set off with a performance by Vidya Shah, followed by a small skit which gave a glimpse into what storytelling is. The event, which was spread across a large area of the school campus, witnessed a multitude of activities and workshops for children as well as parents and teachers.

Several artists, educators and storytellers from across the country joined local counterparts in bringing together this exciting Festival for young kids. The Kahaani Festival Outreach, organized by Pratham Books, was also held at nearly 15 schools in and around the city, engaging students in exciting storytelling sessions from June 17-23rd.

The Festival featured several exciting venues including the freestyle Art Hub, a popular hangout for children to experiment with their creativity and learn new skills like Origami, Quilling, Bunting, Upcycling, and Jute Craft and also featured the Sakal Times Doodle Wall for the kids to innovatively share their experiences at the Festival. The Art Hub also featured contests for participants including the HP Printers Mosaic competition which was won by Siddhant, while Arushi Wakde, Abha Prabhune, Gauri Thombare, Riya Dhame won the Tell-A-Tale competition where children weave their own story with illustrations from Pratham Books' StoryWeaver platform. The winners were awarded an HP Printer each.

Mohit Satyanand, co-founder of Teamwork Arts, created an interactive session at Storyville with his tales Stories by Big Mo which had the young kids captivated. A fascinating puppet show Kalpataru was put up by Dadi Pudumjee’s Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust at the Puppet Cave which also hosted the Little Blue Planet by Katkatha Puppets Arts Trust, and both Pinocchio and Humara Circus by Kuch Kuch Puppet Theatre.

Rashmi Uppal’s Kathak Katha innovatively explored the dance form of Kathak and its role as a mode of storytelling through live demonstrations and training.

Terribly Tiny Tales conducted a creative writing workshop where they interacted with the participants in a rather unconventional way, taking them through various elements of story building.

The Drum Circle hosted by Taal Inc. introduced children to the African instrument, Djembe. It saw excited children playing the instruments while learning the basics of rhythm.

Tram Arts Trusts' A Bird's Eye View enraptured the audience as it took them on an hour long journey through object theatre.

Pune based artist Rupali Bhave’s storytelling workshops too were a huge hit with children across age groups, as were theatre workshops by Saif Hasan Haider and Dinker Sharma and dance workshops by Sumeet Nagdev Dance Arts.

Another exciting session was the cartoon-making workshop by Charuhas Pandit, co-creator of popular Marathi comic strip Chintoo, where children learnt the art of caricature, painting a thousand words with a single picture.

The storytelling workshop for parents and educators, conducted by Eric Miller, Director of the World Storytelling Institute, gave students, educators and parents an opportunity to create and share personal stories and explore various tools of storytelling to interact with each other in a unique way.

The uniquely engaging Culinary Arts workshop by Abhijit Berde was filled with not just delicious food and creative dishes but smiles from across the audience as they participated and learnt to communicate with food and to tell their culinary story with delight.

The Festival bookstore and merchandise booths were a runaway hit with creative artefacts, memorabilia and exciting kickbacks for the young kids to take home. Students from Delhi Public School were joined in by others from across the city including delegations from St. Mary’s, Vibgyor, Vishwashanti Gurukul, Kendra Vidyalaya, Bright Learning School to name a few.