Navarathiri special: Engage your kids with stories, song and dance at this Chennai fest

CHENNAI: The festival of Navarathiri celebrates and worships goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi, each possessing different virtues. People across the world celebrate the festival with poojas, arranging golu, inviting friends, purchasing gold and welcoming new things.

Lil Trails is an initiative started by Avanti Natarajan and her husband Rajavel in February 2020. “I love to be with children. When the lockdown was imposed, parents were clueless on how to keep the children engaged. At that time, we collaborated with Janaki Sabesh for storytelling sessions and I also conducted online sessions related to art. More than 10,000 children participated in the events virtually,” starts Avanti, co-founder of Lil Trails. Eventually, they formed a community called Little Community, which included parents, children and experts from different fields including medicine, fitness, education and more.

“That’s when the idea of why not do a festival around Navarathiri came to us,” she says. Lil Trails, in collaboration with Aalaap, is organising Lil Navaratri. The two-day event will include stories, songs and dance revolving around goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi but from a different perspective. It also narrates the moral values behind it. “Instead of asking the kids to blindly follow the traditions, we wanted to tell the story behind the festival. It will start a healthy conversation among them. Day 2 of the festival is titled The Dancing Goddess, which features the choreography of Sheela Unnikrishnan, Renjith & Vijna and Sushmitha Suresh. Children below the age of 12 will be performing. Kids will instantly connect when they watch children from their age group performing,” adds the 34-year-old.

Founder of Aalaap, Akhila Krishnamurthy, aims to create and build spaces for children which are not intimidating but rather nurturing. “We are into curating experiences. Events like these will help the children stay informed about our culture and traditions, and also appreciate the art form,” shares the 45-year-old.

Navarathiri special: Engage your kids with stories, song and dance at this Chennai fest. The festival begins with Trayiii, a production presented by storyteller Janaki Sabesh and Carnatic musician Madhuvanthi Badri. “Trayi means a group of three, symbolising the three goddesses. Usually, for festivals, kids are aware that they will dress up nicely to celebrate the occasion. Children are always curious to know why we worship gods, their stories and everything. In our production, we will tell them who are Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi and the virtues they carry with today’s relevance. Durga signifies winning for good over evil, Lakshmi symbolises abundance and Saraswathi is for wisdom. Once we remove negativity and welcome prosperity and abundance, we need a lot of wisdom to carry forward the same. To make this more engaging, we have songs in regular intervals, in which children can also sing along,” states Janaki Sabesh.

Avanti’s motto is to provide kids the essence of art and help them enjoy and respect the same. “Exposing them to such art forms at a very young age will help them connect with our roots and have a better understanding of our culture. They will start to appreciate the cultures across the world as well,” believes Avanti. She also feels that children-focused art-based events are comparatively less in Chennai. “Events like these will help to increase the attention span of children and also improve their communication skills when they socialise,” she adds.

On the other hand, Janaki says that children learn from adults. “We engage parents also in the process as they set an example for kids to keep gadgets away. Art is all about immersing one’s self. We do not have enough knowledge of the young minds’ world and they are far more receptive to anything new. Their attention span is excellent when the session is interactive and engaging,” she reflects.

Lil Navaratri also includes Little Golu, which is 2x2 feet. The two-day celebration of the goddesses will take place on October 5 and 6 at Lil Trails, Adyar. The tickets for the fest is available on liltrails.com/lilnavaratri/