In your city: Bengaluru

Our best hours are those spent listening to stories," says Shinibali Mitra Saigal, curator and co-founder of Kahani Karnival, a trust that brings stories alive through books, music, art and dance. The trust, which has been hosting a children’s storytelling festival in Mumbai since 2014, is bringing it to Bengaluru for the first time.

They have had puppeteers narrate epics and poetry; artists create murals with mythology; film-makers show children how to craft a story; dancers get children to experience rhythm and movement via a narrative as well as narratives of physical theatre, mime and comedy, says Saigal.

“This (Bengaluru) is a city that has a vibrant and robust reading culture and has some of the most fantastic and fascinating storytellers in India. This city thrives on stories."

Some of the stories at the festival include a retelling of Vikram Seth’s Beastly Tales with puppets, a dance recital that brings a selection of Karadi Tales (audio books series) to life, a workshop conducted by naturalist Sangeetha Kadur that helps children discover the stories that nature tells, among others.

The final act of the festival is a theatre performance by Kirtana Kumar’s Theatre Lab that uses prose, poetry, monologue and mime to bring to life extracts from some of the finest of young adult literature, including Rudyard Kipling’s Law Of The Jungle.

The festival is on 3 December, from 10.30am-6.30pm at Bangalore International Centre, TERI Complex in Domlur. For details, log on here