#6FrameStoryChallenge: The Girl Who Flew Away

Returning to this blog after more than 2 years...with an enriching Cathaa experience.

What would you do if you had complete freedom to choose? Would it liberate you or leave you perplexed? Well here I experienced the two extremes and a whole lot more in between...

The 6 Frame Story Challenge was one helluva creative exploration just so that the story may strike a chord with its young audience: Children!

So what was the challenge about....Read here

The Making...

With that checkered matrix of random words shouldn't one be overflowing with ideas and stories...?? Yes of course. But then, here comes the part to discern and decide.

Words of William M Bulger.

...."There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he's absolutely free to choose.".... seemed to prompt me to make a choice that is worth the while for the readers/ audience. Obsessed with meaning-making in life and affected by the grave news of Col. M N Rai's martyrdom....i felt compelled to create a story as a commentary on something I felt children held a key to.

At first I was tempted to create outlandish/ endearing stories of the mundane and the magical....but wondered if that's something children are already getting enough of. Are we helping them by feeding their already imaginative minds with more of the same? Don't children need to face/ react to the violent reality which they experience in varying doses (either directly or via mass media) ? What if the story can portray an alternative reality? Should I be representing the real in all its brutality or downplaying it ? 

That's when I let the creative flow take over the over-thinking mind. Turned out that I did want to focus on ending it positively but not without bringing in the magic and wonder I thought of weaving in right from the beginning. (Probably children would like it?).

But I was convinced from M.K. Gandhi's quote....

“If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children.”

The 6 words I chose were:

# Scared; # field; #camera; #flying woman; #valley of flowers; #tail. 

Read more about The Girl Who Flew Away here. 

Published visual story

Reflections...

While the challenge demanded a purely visual narrative without any words, it was originally visualized for a 6 line story. The more I read into the finished imagery, the more I could peer into the unconscious messages and symbolism I had woven into the story. At the risk of killing the fun of open interpretation, I wish to share my intended and unintended meanings of this story. 

The intent was to make the reader empathize with the central character (Girl) and view the world through her eyes and emotions. The direct message was to use imagination, creativity and appreciation of nature and beauty to rule over regressive phenomena such as hatred, war and murder. As my father put it succinctly.."Shoot with a camera/ creative eye rather than guns and tanks"...But there seemed to emerge another unintended not so positive yet hopeful side to the story. So after all the story was not ending on a pleasantly escapist fantastical note but on a poignant one instead.

I am rather fascinated with the latter unintended meaning as it forces the reader to sympathize and wonder in guilt and sorrow as to what could have changed such that the end could have been pleasant and happy? What is the sad meaning anyway?...What if the fantasy was just a subversion of a morbid reality? May be the girl's soul passes on leaving behind the message of life and peace. Maybe the girl was never alive in the first place. Isn't this appalling and crushing for a children's story? Well if I have to go by the famous illustrator/ author Maurice Sendak...that's a whole lot of debate in itself....which is....what is a children's story anyway? Aren't stories just stories...?

Keeping that confusion out....moving on...

Why would the story be interpreted in such a morose and negative light? Why not? Is it important to shield children from intense sorrow/ grief? Must not a tragedy in children's tales be used to awaken empathetic emotions and compassion? What about Anne Frank's account of her real life experience of war ridden times in Europe?

The unintended meaning or subtext appeals to me more than the superficial niceties...a crude attempt to create magic realism may be. But I just discovered how the experience of  children's story writing has turned out to grow from childish nonchalance of singular interpretation to an intense layered interpretation with far greater resonance of the message/ meaning.

Maybe that is why 'The Girl Who Flew Away' was no less of a mystical learning experience for me. There has been such a deep understanding of how every story no matter how naive or simple, is capable of showing up its undercurrents upon deep analysis and reflection....unintentionally albeit....but nevertheless it offers an opportunity for alternative interpretations and meaning making. Doesn't this make 'Story' a marvelous living organism? :)

Take a look at the other wonderful visual stories that form Pratham Book's open source repository for children and adults alike....Let's see if there are more subtexts and layers to decipher.

Until the next post...
Signing off.....
Chitra
PS: A revelation from Thich Nhat Hahn's quotes...and calligraphy