Children | Literature | Fun (C | L | F) – Day 2

TheSeer Team

The youngest reporter and blogger on the team, Devaarsh Mehta attended a few of the CLF sessions for children in his age category (12+) at the Bangalore Literature Festival, Day 2. Find his take on these sessions that are specially designed for children to have fun and also take home a lesson or two.

 

The Grass is Red on The Other Side

Gautam Benegal is a great illustrator. He showed us many of his illustrations in different books and how he uses a different style in each book. He then told us that solitude is essential for ideating. Too many sights and sounds can make the imagination blind and deaf. Yet, if we focus we can even do art in hectic places. Use your fingers as a frame and capture a view, including the time and space in your mind’s eye (you can eve click a picture on your mobile) and then paint/draw it.

 

 

Talking Objects – The Museum as a Storyteller

In the museum, we saw many things like old royal fans, teapots, sugar holders, telephones, butter churners, graters, statues, pictures of weddings, masks, puppets, textiles and many pictures of the Ramayana in different mediums.

It was a lot of fun as we played many games such as guessing games, thinking games etc. I was a little sad in the end, as it had exceeded the time limit and had to be stopped.

 

 

Wonders & Visions – Why Science Fiction?
Vinayak Varma and Gautham Shenoy

This session was the one I enjoyed the most in my entire time at BLF. It was a talk on science fiction. The authors said that reading Sci-fi relaxes them as they can escape from the real world and jump into a world where anything is possible.

 

All good Sci-fi stories have different branches of science at their core. For example, zombies come from zombie ants, ants that are infected with a virus, which causes them to climb up a tree and commit suicide, because of which more viruses are released and this infects other ants.

 

Sci-fi stories also have this what-if-question. Like what if robots took over the earth or what if there is an alternate dimension, etc. Sci-fi stories breathe life into science and they are very different from fantasy stories as they are more in the realm of possibilities. About 30 years ago, having a cell phone would have been something out of a Sci-fi book. Come to think of it, tomorrow itself is Sci-fi because everything IS Sci-fi till it actually happens.

 

 

 

About the Author: Devaarsh Mehta is a certified bookworm, guitarist (almost), riddle maker, puzzle solver, and earth warrior with a huge collection of books in his personal library. He currently writes for TheSeer.

Children | Literature | Fun (C | L | F) – Day 1

TheSeer TeamLeave a comment

The youngest reporter and blogger on the team, Devaarsh Mehta attended a few of the CLF sessions for children in his age category (12+) at the Bangalore Literature Festival, Day 1. Find his take on these sessions that are specially designed for children to have fun and also take home a lesson or two.

 

Tickle Me, Don’t Tickle Me | Jerry Pinto

First we had Jerry Pinto the great
He interacted a lot like my best mate
His book was tickle me don’t tickle me
Which was written during his poetic spree
Be ready to grab an idea he said
You’ll get many just before bed
Language is full of magic
Happiness excitement and tragic
Reading is language’s fun
Even after being finished you won’t want to be done
Language when used well
(What he said is something to dwell)
Is the secret of being a human

 

How Now, Brown Cloud? | Bijal Vachharajani

Bijal Vaccharajani has written ‘A Cloud Called Bhura’. Bijal is an environmentalist and has written many other books including ‘So You Want to Know About The Environment‘.

She was funny and kind.

She asked us many questions and gave a quiz. We made paper planes, wrote letters, and had fun.

 

 

How to Write a Book in a Year | Balaji Venkatraman

Balaji Venkataraman spoke all about how to write a book in a year.

He has written books like Pops! and Flat-Track Bullies. Balaji read a few excerpts from his books and gave us six points –

Get a notebook

Read for half an hour

Pay attention to detail

Look at the fun side

Write four pages on weekends

Give it a title

 

He also did a few small experiments and gave rewards to those who answered the questions that he asked about the experiments.

 

 

Embody & Imagine | Akhshay Gandhi

Akhshay Gandhi did things a little differently. He did activities with us and told us that most stories start by letting yourself free. The ideas mustn’t be pushed out. They will come in their own. We played a few games and a sort of questionnaire with no wrong answers.

 

The Lizard of Oz | Khyrunnisa A

She is an animal lover and her book The Lizard of Oz has more than ten animals in different stories. She was really funny. The reason for the book is to show that insects aren’t that bad. She also uses many funny similes and metaphors.

 

 

Who Changed the Game? | Devika Cariapa

Devika Cariapa has written 25 Game Changers. She has written about the people who faced discrimination and yet went on to become some of the most famous people. The people who changed the tragic, underdeveloped India to the happy, developing one that we live in today. She gave us a trivia test. It was awesome.

 

Tinkle – Make Your Own SuperHero | Savio Mascarenhas

Savio Mascarenhas’ session was a lot of fun. He taught us how to turn Tinkle comic characters into heroes and villains. He took our suggestions to make  Suppandi supervillain. We also learnt many things about comics.

 

Ramayana Vs. Mahabharata | Devdutt Pattanaik

He has written many good mythical stories. He was quite funny. He wrote a double book which is like a book which has two stories in it, one from front to back and the other from back to front. It was a lot of fun.

 

So Who Wants to be a Space Scientist? | Minnie Vaid

Minnie Vaid is a brilliant author who has written about women space scientists. She spoke about the Mangal Mission and Chandrayan. I loved it.

 

 

 

About the Author: Devaarsh Mehta is a certified bookworm, guitarist (almost), riddle maker, puzzle solver, and earth warrior with a huge collection of books in his personal library. He currently writes for TheSeer.