Technology can make anything possible, from the comfort of your couch, you can now access anything. When we hear these lines we immediately think of advanced and new stuff, but this very technology has made us also get back old things we have lost, like Grandma’s stories.
Every Tuesday and Friday, about 10,000 children in India and overseas eagerly await a voice message from Sarla Minni. On these two days, for about 10 minutes, the children are transported into lands of fables – where animals talk, Birbal out does Akbar’s tricks with his wit and where gods walk among common people.
Sarla Minni is a Bengaluru-based homemaker who is popularly known as the ‘Kahaniwali Nani’ (the grandmother who tells stories). Every Tuesday and Friday, she records voice notes of herself telling children’s stories and sends them over messaging app Telegram to her 10,000 ‘grandchildren’.
“These could be stories from Panchatantra, folk tales from around the world, value-based or moral stories, Akbar and Birbal tales…” Sarla reels off.
Stories have always been a significant part of Sarla’s life. The 61-year-old is an avid reader and recalls reading the likes of Reader’s Digest and Enid Blyton’s novels while growing up. She never forgot the joy stories brought her.
In March, Sarla’s niece Parul encouraged her to record a few stories. She sent them to family and friends, who loved them, and forwarded them in turn in their own circles. Soon, Sarla was getting a number of requests to record more such stories and send it to them. With Parul’s insistence, she and Sarla co-founded Kahaniwali Nani.
Apart from her time doing household work, Sarla dedicatedly searches for stories to tell her many grandchildren. She looks out for folk tales and reads up on the different renditions of it. Then she writes her script using the different versions of the story and her own improvisations and records the stories. On Tuesdays, she sends a Hindi story and on Fridays, she sends one in English.
Sarla’s stories don’t have any sound effects. “It’s just a grandmother telling a story to her children,” Sarla states simply. “It has to be personal,” she says.
When Sarla records a story, she does it in one sitting, without breaks, edits or cuts and on her phone. It’s informal, intimate in nature – almost as if a grandmother was telling the story right in front of them.
Once Kahaniwali Nani started, it grew immensely popular, mostly through word of mouth from her first subscribers. “One time, I got around 800 subscription requests in a day from Mumbai,” Sarla tells. Now, she has subscribers from all over the country.
Her ‘grandchildren’ are not only kids, there are some adults too who have subscribed to Kahaniwali Nani.
“They tell me that the stories make them nostalgic and remind them of their childhood,” Sarla says.
Many children also message Sarla about how they liked the stories. “Sometimes I get messages like ‘Nani, we are waiting for the next story. Many parents told me that their children don’t have grandparents, and Kahaniwali Nani has helped with their absence. Others say that their kids are learning new words, and have started liking stories more now,” Sarla says happily.
Sarla often feels sad when she sees so many children today are growing up away from books and stories. “It makes me really sad seeing children of all ages glued to watching these animated cartoons the entire time. How will they learn to imagine?” she rues.
With Kahaniwali Nani, she hopes to do her bit to restore the joy of storytelling for children. “It teaches you to listen. It teaches you patience. It teaches you to close your eyes and imagine an entire forest. That is worth more than money,” she says.