Storytelling on a virtual platform: ‘The Million Year Picnic’ – Ray Bradbury

As part of our ongoing story reading sessions we read today Ray Bradbury‘s ‘The Million Year Picnic.’ This is the last story in his classic ‘The Martian Chronicles.‘

You do not like your house, you change it. You do not like your city, you move on to another city. You do not like your country, you emigrate to another country…. what if you do not like your planet? Where will you go – especially when you cannot make an iota of difference to stop things falling apart?

It is October 2057 and a family of a father, mother and their three sons have come to Mars on a picnic. The oldest of the three sons suspects that there is something amiss in the parental motive for starting on this picnic. Turns out that the world is in the grip of a fierce atomic war and about to blow itself apart out of existence and these parents want to ensure a safe environment for their children and hence the shift to Mars. They are about to be joined by another family with girls and together they hope to start a new, humane civilization on Mars. One of the sons keep asking the father to show Martians and towards the end the father shows their reflections in the canal and declares they are the Martians going forward. There is a place in the story where the father is burning a stack of papers to keep the family warm and this is what he says:

“He dropped a leaf in the fire.

“I’m burning a way of life, just like that way of life is being burned clean of Earth right now. Forgive me if I talk like a politician. I am, after all, a former state governor, and I was honest and they hated me for it. Life on Earth never settled down to doing anything very good. Science ran too far ahead of us too quickly, and the people got lost in a mechanical wilderness, like children making over pretty things, gadgets, helicopters, rockets; emphasizing the wrong items, emphasizing machines instead of how to run the machines. Wars got bigger and bigger and finally killed Earth. That’s what the silent radio means. That’s what we ran away from.“

Ray writes the story in a gentle, easy going prose but keeps dropping hints as he proceeds to a hopeful conclusion. It is a favourite story of mine for its growing relevance to our current day lives…. Personally, I am happy I could introduce this story to the group.

There was a mixed reaction with a majority of the children liking it but a couple of children vehemently voting against it – reflecting a growing diversity in tastes.

Storytelling on a virtual platform: ‘The Fog Horn’ – Ray Bradbury (Story read in Purva Panorama Story Reading Group – Feb 22, 2023)

As part of our ongoing story reading sessions we read “The Fog Horn” by Ray Bradbury. There is a long list of Ray’s stories I would like to introduce to this group and hopefully “The Fog Horn” will mark a journey of getting to know one of the greatest Science Fiction and Fanatasy writers of all time. I chose this story for 2 reasons:

1. We read the same in our Hiranandani group 2 years back and children really loved it.
2. I like the imaginative quality and writing style of this story.

In a nutshell the story is about a fog horn on a lonely functional lighthouse which is meant to signal ships but strangely it attracts the attention of a deep sea being which comes seeking companionship with the fog horn and the lighthouse thinking that it is a similar being like itself. Finding no reciprocation, realizing it is an inanimate thing and filled with bitterness, the deep sea being destroys the entire setup out of disappointment never to return again. Ray describes this in a prose which is touching:

“That’s life for you,” said McDunn. “Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home. Always someone loving some thing more than that thing loves them. And after a while you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it can hurt you no more.”

The whole proceedings are watched by two of the lighthouse-fog horn keepers but they never tell it to others for the fear of being disbelieved. A new lighthouse with a new fog horn is built but now it does not matter as that deep sea being returns for ever to its loneliness and isolation in deep sea.

I was fascinated with the ambivalent feelings this story engendered in the children. Some interesting phrases used by children to describe their feelings included: “It was boring but it is also interesting,” “It is very different,” “It is scary and nice” or “the author should have described the deep sea being”…. etc

Overall, I felt it was an engaging session which evoked different feelings in children….. and that to me is the purpose of all good literature….

Storytelling on a virtual platform: ‘No Morning After’ – Arthur C. Clarke

As part of our ongoing story reading sessions, we read today Arthur C. Clarke‘s “No Morning After.” I would classify this as a blue blooded sci-fi story.

The aliens of Thaar residing 500 light years away from earth, realise that the sun is about explode in 74 hours and desperately want to contact (through telepathy) a human being with whom they can communicate this and save earthlings by transporting them through bridgehead tunnels built in the 37th dimension. While focusing all their thought energy to find a suitable earthling they come across Bill – a brilliant mathematician-rocket scientist who is deeply upset with personal problems of office and home. He is extremely suitable for communication but the challenge is that he is drunk. The Thaarns create a thought tunnel and begin communicating with Bill who interprets the tunnel and the voices he hears as his drunken hallucination. He ignores the warning of Thaarns and goes onto drink till he passes out for 48 hours. He wakes up to a vague memory of the proceedings but not able to recollect due to his wife’s nagging. The next morning… well there is no next morning anymore….. for the 74 hours are done….

What starts on a light and funny note descends into an abrupt and gigantic catastrophe quickly. Clarke leaves the readers with a sense of helplessness…..

I thought members of our group will not like a story of this nature but to my surprise they did vote in its favour quite strongly.

A well attended session….

Ray Bradbury & Our Reading Group

In the last 2 years, we have read 50 stories from Ray Bradbury alone. Children of our group love Ray’s stories. Rarely have children gone back disappointed from sessions which involved Ray’s stories. His stories have made a mark on the children and they now have some great examples and benchmarks to show and think about what good stories look like. He is entertaining, wonderful, deep, humorous, touching, troubling, frightening, intelligent and above all prone to create a hunger in children to want to read more – not necessarily his own stories but stories “like his.” And that “like his” in my view is a high bar in taste. No other writer in the 80+ writers we touched in our group till date has come any close to him in the way he affected children. That is a hallmark of a good writer. I am deeply happy for the children and equally happy for myself to be able to do this for them. Here is a list of Ray Bradbury’s stories we read till date:

The Fog Horn, The City, The Last Night of the World, Mexico Calling, The Smile, The Picasso Summer, The Scythe, The Night, The Fox and the Forest, The Long Rain, The Pedestrian, All Summer in a Day, Kaleidoscope, There Will Come Soft Rains, The Poems, A Season of Disbelief, Another Fine Mess, The One Who Waits, The Crowd, The Coffin, Marionettes Inc., Mars is Heaven, The Emissary, The Man Upstairs, The Small Assassin, Skleton, The Far-Away Guitar (Miss Bidwell), The Sea Shell, Hail and Farewell, The Wind, Bless Me, Father for I have Sinned, Zero Hour, The Rocket, A Sound of Thunder, The Veldt, The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind, The Flying Machine, A Story of Love, Fever Dream, Aqueduct, The Wilderness, The Earth Men, A Piece of Wood, The Visitor, The Other Foot, The Man, On the Orient – North, The Pumpernickel, The Clean Shave, Lafayette Farewell…

…. and we are not done with Ray yet…. there is more of him to come in future…….

Storytelling on a virtual platform: ‘Lafayette, Farewell’ – Ray Bradbury

As part of our ongoing storyreading sessions, we read today ‘Lafayette Farewell‘ – by Ray Bradbury. This is one of my favourite stories from Ray’s oeuvre.

It is 1987 now and Bill is a WW 1 war veteran of 1918 from USA who was sent out on a loan to be part of France’s elite Lafayette Escadrille (fighter squadron). He is aging and losing his memory but remorse for killing fine young men in the opposite camp in a meaningless and devastating war long gone by keeps haunting him in his dreams. And from these dark dreams he needs redemption. Bill’s neighbour is a middle-aged writer who is very kind and understanding of Bill’s predicament and willy-nilly helps him get his redemption through seeking forgiveness. What makes the story a standout one is how Ray portrays the meaninglessness of war and how ordinary soldiers and men on the ground are devoid of personal animosity and hatred to anyone – including so called enemies. Ray combines the longing arising out of nostalgia with themes from Shakespeare’s great ghost plays and the power of forgiveness, slice of history and human solidarity to create a story of exceptionally moving quality.

It is a story of deep human feelings narrated with a touch of sophistication but children got it effortlessly and voted for it strongly.

I took this as an opportunity to introduce to children that wonderful poem by W.B Yeats called ‘An Irish Airman foresees his Death’ to drive home the similarity of themes in the futility of war and what ordinary participants feel and think about war…

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Storytelling on a virtual platform: ‘October and June’ – O. Henry, ‘The Clean Shave’ – Ray Bradbury & ‘Akbar’s Bridge’ – Rudyard Kipling

As part of our ongoing story reading sessions we read the following today:

1. October and June – O. Henry
2. The Clean Shave – Ray Bradbury
3. Akbar’s Bridge – A poem by Rudyard Kipling

The first two are short reads of 15 minutes each with unexpected twists at the end. Both were received well. However, what really surprised me was the reception of this enjoyable poem of Rudyard Kipling by members of our group.

Legend has it that Akbar wanted to construct a mosque on the banks of River Gomti like the one never seen before by mankind and ordered his Munim/Viceroy to get going with the work. Bored one day he was strolling on the banks of River Gomti incognito when a sharp tongued potter’s wife began lamenting the absence of a bridge, a boat and boatman to take her across the river. Akbar offers to take her across with the help of a small stow boat which he himself begins to row… On the journey and not knowing that it is Akbar the lady heaps a mouthful of vilest abuse on Akbar and his Munim… Akbar senses the correctness of her need and her well meaning intention and upon returning to the palace orders the Munim to cancel the mosque and construct a bridge instead with that money and that is how the Shahi Bridge or Munim Khan’s Bridge or Akbari Bridge or Mughal Bridge or Jaunpur Bridge got constructed. Here are a few extracts from the poem which drew giggles from the children:

“Oh, most impotent of bunglers! Oh, my daughter’s daughter’s brood
Waiting hungry on the threshold; for I cannot bring their food,
Till a fool has learned his business at their virtuous grandma’s cost,
And a greater fool, our Viceroy, trifles while her name is lost!

( The fool is Akbar because he is not able to row the boat properly)

“Munim Khan, that Sire of Asses, sees me daily come and go
As it suits a drunken boatman, or this ox who cannot row.
Munim Khan, the Owl’s Own Uncle-Munim Khan, the Capon’s seed,
Must build a mosque to Allah when a bridge is all we need!

(A capon is a castrated domestic cock fattened for eating)

Chastised Akbar takes this same abuse back to his Munim and tells him the following:

And he ended, “Sire of Asses-Capon-Owl’s Own Uncle-know
I-most impotent of bunglers-I-this ox who cannot row-
I-Jelaludin Muhammed Akbar, Guardian of Mankind-
Bid thee build the hag her bridge and put our mosque from out thy mind.”

We managed all three in an hour…..

Storytelling on a virtual platform: ‘A Harlem Tragedy’ – O. Henry

As part of our ongoing story reading sessions, we read today O.Henry‘s ‘A Harlem Tragedy‘ – from his collection ‘The Trimmed Lamp’

This is O. Henry‘s inimitably ironical take on conjugal strife between two couples and how envy drives reason out the window and how folks desire for the worst arrangement in a husband – wife relationship just because they aspire for surface trifles.

I chose this story for the multi layered narrative complexity that O. Henry brings to the table with a laughter inducing end which successfully side steps the distress such a topic ensues.

Children received it quite well and I had an opportunity to explain the role of alliteration in enriching a narrative.

Book Bees Reading Club (Juniors) – Dick Whittington – From ‘Told Again’ – Walter De La Mare

Upon the request of a few parents, we started a story reading group for children between 7-10 years in our apartment complex. Today we completed reading our first story: ‘Dick Whittington‘ taken from Walter De La Mare‘s ‘Told Again‘ tales. This age group I am realizing needs a very different kind of handling. They are a fidgety lot with short attention spans and with huge buzz of thoughts, ideas, doubts and opinions going on in their minds – which needs immediate expression. At the same time they have sponge like capacity to absorb/assimilate age appropriate content given to them. Credulity, innocence and curiosity are their hallmark characteristics. It is fun to work with them.

I was impressed with the way Walter De La Mare tells these stories in his own style and Philip Pullman‘s introduction to the book opened my eyes to its importance.

Storytelling on a virtual platform: ‘The Social Triangle’ – O. Henry

As part of our ongoing story reading sessions, we read today O. Henry‘s ‘The Social Triangle.’ This story is taken from his collection ‘The Trimmed Lamp.’ It is a subtle take on class difference and how three different people from three different social strata strive to make acquaintance of each other and feel gratified.

Ikey is a poor tailor’s apprentice whose greatest desire is to shake hands with Billy McMahan who is an upstart in New York political and business circles. He achieves that by staking a full week’s wages in buying drinks for Billy and his group of lackeys. Billy wants to make friends with the aristocractic millionnaire Van Duyckink and offers his services to help Duyckink deliver his philanthropic efforts to the poor of New York. This helps Billy shake hands with Van Duyckink and thrills him to no end. Van Duyckink’s philanthropic intentions take him to the one of the poorest localities of New York where he gets an opportunity to shake the hands of a poor man and feel thrilled about it. Turns out that, that poor man is none other than our Ikey with whom the story begins. Thus the social triangle gets fully connected.

It is a dense narrative with a load of new words and phrases that children needed some handholding. For a short story there were multiple references to characters and phrases from Greek Mythology and Bible. Despite that, a majority of children indicated that they liked the story and expressed a view that it is very different from the other O.Henry stories we have read in the past.

Beyond a point, O.Henry gets a bit difficult to read for children but I believe that he is too original, too creative and too enjoyable a writer to be left unintroduced in their formative years.