The 16th edition of Kathakar International Storytellers Festival was held from 1 December to 4 December at Sunder Nursery. The festival showcased packed stellar line of Kamishibai from Japan, “Tollu Bommallata” shadow puppetry from Andhra Pradesh, Warsi brothers and star artist AR Rahman, Imtiaz Ali, Mukesh Chhabra, Mohit Chauhan, Godfrey Duncan, Katy Cawkwell, aborigine storytellers Jodi Edwards and many others. The festival was inaugurated on 1 December by Oscar Awardee, A R Rahman.
The festival hosted storytellers from Israel, Australia, Japan, Turkey, Poland, Columbia, United Kingdom, Mongolia and India. The festival featured storytelling sessions for children in the morning and general public in the evening.
The patron of the festival well-known singer Mohit Chauhan who is also the Cultural Envoy of Mongolia to India gave his insights about the festival.
Singer Mohit Chauhan said, “This is the 16th edition of our oral story-telling festival. Stories keep travelling from one generation to another, our civilization is very old so there are lot of stories are connected with our lives. Stories of kings, local folklore, stories from villages, we get wisdom, knowledge and entertainment from such stories and it gives wings to our imagination. We organise this festival to keep that art of story-telling alive in which intellectuals come from abroad as well as the entire country. And they narrate the stories about their culture in their method. To keep the heritage of stories alive we organise this festival every year.”
Kathakar– International Storytellers festival was started in 2010 under the aegis of UNESCO by NGOs Nivesh and HHACH to preserve and promote the ancient art of storytelling.