Kommune of shared passion

It is a well-known fact that the history of storytelling goes back to perhaps the initial days of human civilisation, when our ancestors would sit around the fire and narrate experiences of their day hunt to the excited children. Kommune, a city-based community, is working for that primeval passion for storytelling. Their latest workshop on Sunday will allow participants to share their life stories and become good storytellers.

The idea which was started as a small project by artistes Roshan Abbas, Gaurav Kapoor and Ankur Tiwari two years ago, has become a unique platform for storytellers and slam-poets.

“It all started as storytelling sessions in living rooms, where Roshan would invite 10 to 15 friends and tell stories over food and drinks. Soon they realised that this could become a proper venture. We had our first show at Blue Frog,” says Shamir Reuben, a poet who heads the content and social media for Kommune.

The popularity of the ‘Kommunity’ is hard to gauge offline, but if social media numbers are anything to go by, their Facebook page has been by the time this piece goes to the printer, it had 100,083 ‘Likes’.

There are usually about 60 seats for the workshop, where participants from various age groups come and share their stories. Out of all the stories about six to seven stories are picked up based on the content and then they get a chance to be heard by the entire audience. However, there are a few rules that participants must take into concern. “One, your story should have a beginning, middle and an end. Two, it should have a moral in the end and finally it should be a life story, which had changed the life of the storyteller,” points out Shamir.

Certain stories, with great content are also put on the Kommune social media pages and they also get to perform at various gigs. But the idea is not just to tell great stories or poetry, but also to interact with people. “Of course the focus is on the stories and storytelling, but we also look at the idea of interaction. Strangers come under the same roof and share some of their most intimate stories and experiences. In one of our sessions, a lady from Ludhiana had come all the way to Mumbai just to tell her story about how she grew up with an alcoholic father,” Shamir adds ruefully.

Sometimes the stories are also quite strange. “For instance, there was once this girl who shared her experience in China. For the longest time she  thought there was semen in her food, but it was actually sesame. (In China sesame is called semen),” he adds with a laugh.

However, it’s the intimate affair of sharing stories that makes the Kommune thrive, believes Shamir. “Every session is magical about these sessions, almost like every moment is an epiphany. There’s a reason why people keep coming back to our workshop,” he concludes.

On March 5, 7 pm onwards, At The Little Door, Andheri (W)
Registration: Rs 300