[Reader-list] Kiski Kahani project

[Ujwala Samarth]

Open Space, Pune invites Readerslist members to give some critical feedback on -- and invites contributions to --  their website http://kiskikahani.openspaceindia.org ... Here's the introduction to the site:
Tulsidas once said, “Ram incarnates in many ways/and there are tens of millions of Ramayans”. In keeping with these “tens of millions” of renditions, Kiski Kahani celebrates the diversity of the Ramayana tradition and explores their vicissitudes.
The story of Rama has been passed down for thousands of years, yet it still captures our imagination. It is said that no one ever hears the Ramayana for the first time: we begin our enquiry by asking what allows this ancient but continually regenerated tale to cross the borders of both our imagination and time, morphing and changing as it passes through villages and cities, over mountains and rivers, between trees and deserts.
In addition to providing a forum for dialogue and debate, our impetus for this project is to investigate the vast array of Ramayana traditions and present a repository of Ramayana stories, critical and performative interpretations and visual representations.
Consistent with the overall mission of Open Space & CCDS, our aim at the broadest level is to encourage curiosity and intellectual engagement, to foster critical enquiry, and to support the questioning of dogmatic and apparently monolithic narratives. At a more specific level, we strive to document and archive lesser-known, regional and folk narrative traditions.
Kiski Kahani supports Open Space’s larger goals of fostering social change and development. Through this project, we will nurture young people’s engagement with these issues, enabling them to become agents of that social change and development.
Here are links to recent uploads on the site:


http://kiskikahani.openspaceindia.org/photoessays/living-with-ravana/ 


http://kiskikahani.openspaceindia.org/articles/savari-ramlila-in-old-delhi/ 


 
Ujwala Samarth


"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." -- Annie Dillard