The Yunus Emre Institute organized a fairytales-telling event in India, which was called “Fairytales in Two Languages”. The first day of the event was organized on 24.04.2018  in the Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University. The Turkish Ambassador in India Şakir Özkan Torunlar and the Rector of the JMI University Prof. Dr. Talat Ahmad also attended the event.

In his speech in the program, Ambassador Torunlar said: “When we were child, our elderly used to tell us fairytales and stories. They never told us if those stories were true or not, and they never asked us if we believed in them or not. Then we grew up  and started to tell our fairy tales to others. We also never asked them if they believed or not. Such stories were either what we heard from others or our own stories. It did not matter. Stories have such an aspect that heal our wounds.”

As for the Rector of the JMI, he said: “We used to listen to fairy tales from our grandmothers, grandfathers before we went to bed at night. Today we will listen to fairytales at daytime for the first time.”

Students and academicians showed great interest in the event where storytellers Nazlı Çevik Azazi (Turkey), one of the founders of the SEIBA-International Storytelling Center, and Jessica Willson (Walles) told stories in their native languages while musician Faysal Macit accompanied them with his rhythms and melodies. The first day of the event ended with the offer of Indian food followed by Turkish coffee and Turkish delight.

The second day of the “Fairytales in Two Languages” event brought together fairytale-tellers and academicians.

The event took place in the Suryaa Hotel where a presentation was also made about the activities of the Yunus Emre Institute. Then fairytale-tellers shared with the audience their stories regarding how they started fairytale-telling and what they have experienced all along. They talked about the place and importance of fairytale-telling in the Turkish and Indian cultures as well as the universal nature of fairytale-telling.

One of the fairytale-tellers, Usha Chhabbara, told that he noticed his talent about fairytale-telling when he was working as a teacher and he also used this talent in language teaching. Another fairytale-teller Seema Wahi said she told fairytales while she was making baby toys and animal figures from pieces of cloth to use them in her performances.  Still another fairytale-teller Muhherjee stated that they made use of fairytales in teaching mathematics which made it easer for children to learn mathematics.

Nazlı Çevik Azazi and Jessica Willson expressed their satisfaction at the level of  participation and interest in the event.

The third day of the “Fairytales in Two Languages”  event was organized in the Islamic Cultural Center in New Delhi, India.  Turkish families and Indians participated in the event in which, old and young, everybody showed great interest.