Bangalore Literature Festival: Storytelling should be part of teaching, says Sudha Murty

The second day of the Bangalore Literature Festival turned out to be as illuminating and exciting as the first.

Murty Foundation chairperson and author Sudha Murty delved into the magic of storytelling and lamented how children today are missing out on listening to stories from their grandparents. “I’ve written 42 books of different genres in 40 years of my life. Around 2005 onwards, I suppose I started writing for children because nowadays grandparents don’t stay with their grandchildren. Back in those days, joint family was all we had. These days, we grandparents are substituted with video games and I never like that. I said no, children should read, they should enjoy the simple stories,” she said in a conversation with author Manu Pillai.

Murty stressed the importance of honesty, hard work and dignified living. “It’s like a moral science class,” she said.

According to Murty, storytelling should be an integral part of teaching. “I used to teach computer science management. Classes used to be for 1 hour 45 minutes. I used to teach them and in the last 15 minutes, I would always tell a story. My students, who passed successfully, used to tell me that all they remember are the stories that I ended with. That shows the power of stories,” she added.

She then emphasised the points of language and culture, saying “when you look behind, do you feel connected to your roots? Language and culture are defined together, culture is not independent of language”

Addressing the young children, she said, “Always ask questions. Asking questions shows that you have an inquisitive mind. As long as you have a love for learning, you are young. Keep the love for learning and ask questions. If something is wrong, then ask questions to anybody and there’s nothing wrong with it. But along with that, you also need to have the habit of working hard.”