What makes these sessions unique is that the team offers a plethora of stories from foreign literature. What makes these sessions unique is that the team offers a plethora of stories from foreign literature.

This generation has not really tasted the joy of fairytales, the prince and the princesses, the wild jungles and the island of butterflies, as narrated during bedtime stories by elders, especially the grandparents, in the family.

With children these days increasingly growing up surrounded by gadgets in this internet age, a group in Pune is attempting to revive the fast-fading family storytelling time for the young.

Started on an experimental basis five months ago, language experts at Flatworld Language Solutions now host monthly storytelling sessions in Marathi.

What makes these sessions unique is that the team offers a plethora of stories from foreign literature.

“The culture of story telling is vanishing and we believe this medium can help boost the imagination of young kids,” said foreign language expert Neha Mahajan, from the Solutions team.

Titled Kapuskondichi Goshta, the team has by far managed to translate several children’s stories from German, Japanese, French and Russian languages into Marathi. The team, through its trained story-tellers, narrates stories in the local language to children of two age groups — two to five years and six to 10 years.

While the number of young listeners has grown ever since, the team now plans to introduce tales from Indian languages starting next year.

When asked how the culture and other value systems based in foreign land find a suitable translation into the vernacular medium, Mahajan said, “While it is a way of exploring cultures from these foreign lands, at

times, we need to tweak some aspects to suit our Indian audience who are turning to stories in Marathi.”

The monthly session, put together by a team of over 20 translators of foreign languages, is usually held in the last weekend of every month.

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