Pen or guitar, kids shine on TOI centre stage

KOLKATA: The lights are soft and golden. The carpet’s rich and red; But they can’t compete with our talent Or the wonders in our head.
Class IX student Utkarsha Bora penned this verse at the Kolkata for Kids creative writing workshop presented by The Times of India on Tuesday. Like the 29 other youngsters who joined the workshop, Utkarsha, too, aims to be a writer.She dabbles in short stories apart from scribbling verses. And like most others in her age group, Utkarsha swears by JK Rowling. Creative writing is alive and well in Kolkata and not every youngster wants to be a software engineer yet.
At the workshop, budding writers came up with curious short stories and poems. Some were funny, some spooky and yet others dealt with serious relationship issues. Many of the youngsters had the potential to turn writers, felt journalist and author Avijit Ghosh, who conducted the workshop. "If they keep working on their writing, quite a few will eventually be writers. They show enough promise and maturity already," said Ghosh, even as he asked the group to expand four lines written by him to a one-page short story. The results left Ghosh excited. From ghost stories to compact suspense tales, the children came up with a curious mix of plots and themes.

“It shows they take their writing seriously. I was pretty impressed by the fact they are already sending their stories and verses to various magazines,” he said. Ghosh laid down a few golden rules for the aspiring story-tellers. “Generally, we write and are done with it. But it’s important to polish it, keep working on it till you feel it can’t be improved any further. If necessary, leave the story for a week and come back to it. Then, read it like a reader would and look for flaws - grammatical errors, logical fallacy or if there’s a break in the flow,” suggested Ghosh.
In another workshop conducted by TOI on Monday, children got a chance to interact and learn from the famous guitarist from Krosswindz, Vikramjit Banerjee. He not only taught the kids how to play the guitar but had great fun with them. The session conducted at the ICCR saw around 15 kids aspiring to become future rockstars. The mentor taught the children how to strum, play and few chords and some of their favourite songs. He also showed the children his incredible guitar skills by playing a few guitar solos.

One of the kids, Diptangshu Chanda said, “I love playing the guitar and this was an awesome experience. Sir is not only a great mentor but an awesome guitarist. I was greatly influenced by this workshop.” “It was a great experience for me. There was such an age gap between me and the children that I had to go to their level and explore their minds,” said Banerjee.