Narrating stories to new-age kids

BENGALURU:  I recently got invited as a ‘storyteller’ in my hometown Bhubaneswar as part of a storytelling festival. I am required to narrate stories to children as part of a city-wide festival celebrating the art of storytelling. At first, I was elated. 

My first-ever association with the organisation in question was when I volunteered to help out children who were displaced due to religious conflicts. I was a commerce graduate with no idea about my future. I narrated stories to the children from books, and found that I greatly enjoyed it. The stint introduced me to people, got me a job in advertising, and set me on a career in journalism and humour writing. I daresay it changed my life, and it all came full circle to be invited as a guest storyteller by the same organisation after more than a decade. 

I have always believed that we are surrounded by stories. Listen to people describe their trips to Goa, and you will hear stories with various levels of exaggeration. When I worked as a teacher, I would listen to children come up with the wildest stories to explain their absence from school the previous day. One kid passionately explained to me how he had diligently completed his homework, but the cow ate all of it while he was sleeping! Or look at how we ask for leaves from work – a mix of fact and fiction. Of late, our cook has the greatest stories to narrate. Whenever he misses work, he appears the next day to narrate a story that would make James Cameron blush. They all begin with him drinking a beer, and then flow into a smorgasbord of action, emotions and comedy! 

But how am I going to engage the kids of today? When I began, kids only had access to televisions. But in more than a decade, the entire world of multimedia has transformed beyond recognition. Kids today have all kinds of resources available to them – smartphones with 4G connections, YouTube channels specially dedicated to kids. OTT platforms designed to keep children hooked on for hours at stretch while their parents negotiate with their bosses over Zoom calls. How was I going to keep them engaged?

Also, what kind of stories should I tell them? Stories of kings and queens might be obsolete for today’s kids. The innocent Panchatantra stories featuring animals and birds (and a moral at the end) might be too simplistic. I considered stories from history – but they must be listening to them at school. Why become an unpaid history tuition teacher for the children? Ghost stories? Superhero stories? I am not sure if I can compete with what is available on the web. 

And that is when it struck me. A lot of my writer friends today are scared stiff about the entry of AI algorithms like ChatGPT. And just like a children’s story, I decided to transform the monster into a friend. I shall use AI to generate stories and tweak them for the kids. A superhero who fought for the rights of forest-dwellers after landing on earth from outer space.

Or a crocodile that can hack human beings into loving them. Or a story of two brothers who find their parents kidnapped by an evil billionaire on Mars. Over the last few days, I have been cranking keywords into AI sites to come up with stories. Of course, the reaction of the children will decide if my technique will work. And if they don’t, I can always blame AI for it. The intelligence, after all, was ‘artificial’!