In an online session, a city-based educator will share a new, unsanitised perspective on traditional fairy tales.
Shreedevi will talk about three fairy tales at the interactive session
Shreedevi Sunil outgrew her love for fairy tales when she realised that she couldn’t relate to them. How could Cinderella marry the prince after only a dance? Why are all stepmothers evil? These questions triggered the city-based educator and founder of Talking Turtles Storytellers to start researching the history behind these stories. And the multiple perspectives she found as a result of her research, will be presented at Tales (Un)Faired, an online talk hosted by TabooDana, a platform for tabooed discussions.
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The session is open to adults only and three stories — titles will be unveiled only at the event — will be discussed. “I’ve read and listened to many original versions of these fairy tales. Stepmothers, for instance, were not really stepmothers. My understanding of it is that they were just mothers who were not in the best of mental state. Parenting is not always easy,” she shares.
Shreedevi Sunil
The storyteller also asserts that the context of the story is important; most fairy tales, she says, were written in the post-war period when resources were scarce. “From what I read, I gathered that there were, indeed, parents who left their children at a church or forest and hoped that out of niceness, someone would give them something to eat. So abandonment was common, and I could relate to it when I revisited Hansel and Gretel,” she informs.
While the goal is not to contemporise each tale; Shreedevi hopes to present the stories in a manner where the audience can resonate to some parts of it.
The essence of a fairy tale lies in its ability to take the reader to make-believe, magical place, and Shreedevi will tackle that aspect, too. “Our expectations from them haven’t really changed. The child who is reading this will always hope to be a princess, but of course, as she grows up, she realises that life is not as easy as it seems,” she says.
On April 17, 6.30 pm to 7.30 pm
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Cost Rs 499
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