The six-hour journey from Pune to Beed was lovely. I love travelling in the monsoon through pouring rain, looking at all the shades of green passing by. I love the hills in the rain. They’re so full of life, so different from the parched summer browns! My workshop last weekend was with Gurukul English School […]
Summer Camp – Cedarwood Afterschool
For all those who have been asking me whether I have any workshops planned for the summer … I’m doing four exciting weeks under the banner of the Cedarwood Afterschool Program at Magarpatta City. The modules I’m conducting include – – A five-day reading workshop for the age-group 7-12 – A five-day writing workshop for the […]
The Crazy Travelogue – V
Coping with a new language, staying with people I did not know and attending school with friends who were much better at French than I was was too trying an experience for me to have written about my experience every day. I wanted to write, but it was all good intentions and nothing more. On […]
Imagine and Innovate: A Workshop on Books for Children
Workshop Outline: How do books come alive? What happens in the mind of the writer, and how does it finally reach the hands of the reader? “Imagine and Innovate” explores each step of the journey: from the idea to the making of the book. Children will come together to create a story, design and make a […]
Day Two: Storytelling Workshop
We read aloud, acted, spoke, coloured, stamped and drew. I heard two stories about a zoo, and we read a lovely story about two rabbits and a fairy princess. What a feast of stories it was! The three-day storytelling workshop had: 1. Tikki tikki tembo 2. The Witch and her Two Daughters (adapted from two […]
Photographs from Yesterday’s Workshops
Sunday morning saw the end of my two-day workshop, Weekend with Words, at JustBooks Aundh. With Word Search, Word-Building and Word Train, we came to the end of a fun workshop! At the British Library, we had a day based on Roald Dahl! Today, we have: Storytelling Workshop Time: 11 am to noon Age-group: 5-8 […]
Two Workshops Yesterday!
Here are some of the photographs from yesterday’s workshops! Weekend with Words by Varsha Seshan at JustBooks Aundh Storytelling with Varsha at Friends Library Mark the next ones! JustBooks, Aundh: The second session of Weekend with Words is today at 10:30 am British Library: The second session of Read Something New! is today at 3 […]
Workshops Ahead
Here is what my next two weekends look like! Workshop Details Weekend with Words: Age-group: 9-12 Registration Fee: Rs. 500 Read Something New! Age-group: 8-12 Registration fee: Rs. 1,200 for members; Rs. 2,200 for non-members (complimentary six-month gold membership with each registration) Storytelling with Varsha: Postponed from 15th August 2014 to 23rd August 2014 Age-group: […]
Talking to Children
In one of the places where I used to teach dance, children from various backgrounds often had trouble communicating with me. They spoke little or no English and sometimes, little or no Hindi, Tamil or Marathi. Problems occurred when they spoke just one language if that one was not one I understood. I remember one […]
The Awful English Language
Teaching English is impossible. Words like ‘enough’ are enough to put anyone off, but they don’t even begin to scratch the surface. It so happened during one class that I had to pronounce all the words – though, thought, although, rough and plough. The hilarity and bewilderment are impossible to forget. One particular class stands […]
Flat-Hunting
I think flat-hunting is one of those jobs that is most tedious, yet most adventurous, when done alone. After one year in Calcutta, armed with my knowledge of Bangla (largely restricted to daily words like clothes, dishes, wash, pillow, etc.), I decided to hunt for a flat. Approaching brokers made me realise that my vocabulary […]
Torre Pendente
We had just a few hours at Pisa, but we could not travel all over Italy and not visit the famous leaning tower. So we asked a lady on a train what to do, and she wrote for us the name of the bus stop to which we needed to go to see the leaning […]
Ramayan in French
My association with France began with a French exchange programme in 2004. I was vegetarian, I barely spoke French, I had never heard the French accent, I was to live with a French family for three weeks and I was to attend French school in that time. And because I was 17, I was not […]
Learning to Communicate
“Do you speak English?” we asked three police-people standing at a signal in Milan. The policewoman shook her head and turned to the men. “Just a leetle,” said one. Then began our attempt to tell them we were lost and looking for our hostel. The hostel had given us a map, but we had walked […]