Telling tales

Gurnaaz Kaur

It’s not always easy to tell your story or share your fears and fantasies with strangers. And when you’ve grown up getting instructions from parents and grandparents to not trust strangers or be with them, it gets even more difficult. This will probably be a thing of past now. The millennial generation is not only bringing a huge shift to the ‘old’ mindset, but also giving voice to the unheard in the most artistic ways. 

We are talking about spoken word poetry and the art of storytelling and how these platforms are gaining a huge momentum in youth like the recently concluded Story Fest in Chandigarh.

Poetry prowess

Nandini Varma and Shantanu Anand are the co-founders of Airplane Poetry Movement. APM is among the initial groups that has worked towards resurging the art of spoken word poetry. As the force behind giving a platform to many poets, their idea of success is, “If the only thing we accomplish is that literally every second person is able to express themselves and has the guts to speak their truth that would be it,” they echo.

Your voice matters

There is a veritable increase in the popularity that these young voices are getting on the social media; this Shantanu and Nandini thing can also turn into a wrong reason of becoming a spoken word poet. “The real flip side to this movement is when people are dishonest. Now spoken word poetry is popular, there are people who want to use it for personal gain and thus get dishonest with the art form,” they explain.

While Nandini says she is an introvert person and poetry makes it easy for her to express her feelings, for Shantanu this is a medium to share his take on anything and everything, which includes social issues. “It is pertinent to speak about things that are affecting us, it may be just my view, but if I am able to share it and people can relate to it, I’ve done my bit,” Shantanu affirms.

Anything arts

Kommune began in 2015 by Roshan Abbas, Ankur tiwari and Gaurav Kapoor. Performance art would mean having stage, lights, sound and regular rehearsals; but what if there was none? “That’s when the idea of forming this community spurted. Roshan said what if we turned around and started narrating stories from our lives? That wouldn’t need rehearsal or mic. All it would need is a space that connects different dots of the performance art industry. And that’s what we do,” Hari Sankar, a storyteller says. 

Powerful connection

Hari has many stories to share they are all about his life, from where he started to where he has come. “I bring intimacy and warmth to the stage. Be in 100 or 1,000 people in the audience, I aim to form a connection that is direct and personal,” he tells.

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