Lessons of morality through 'folklore'

It is sheer coincidence or accident that Ramaa Raavi, a Sankrit scholar, embarked on a professional journey of storytelling. It all started when her close friend introduced her to the executives of Suman TV.

Ramaa says, "Reading books was a staple in my family so I picked it up naturally. I pursued MA Sanskrit and worked as a sanskrit lecturer for over a decade, the storytelling career was a recent venture that started no more than 3 years ago."

Her stories are basically told to the mothers as they are the ones who narrate stories to their kide. Later, kids also started watching her videos with utmost attention.

The stories that she tells are usually the ones that have been running through the minds of the older generations but are lost to the newer generations. "The stories are aimed at imparting lessons of morality to the listeners. Though I'm not a writer, but the stories I penned down acts as a bridge between the older and newer generations. Some stories are Indeed tweaked a bit to include 'Chanakya neeti', so that they are relevant even in the current era. I also include other topics in my talks like the importance of festivals, spirituality in general, parenting advice, I also throw in recipes and home remedies every now and then," adds Ramaa.

Her stories talk about good and bad things, tips related to teenager, motivational topics and on the struggles of the middle class woman. Earlier, she thought that no one would listen to her but she was surprised when her viewership got around 1 lakh views and when she talked about child psychology topics she received more views than before. She currently has more than 500 videos.

During this lockdown, she has been making videos on her phone at her home. She has been picking up story topics from the spiritual and inspirational books. Later, she started narrating her own stories.

'Thagubothu piloudu', is her first own story which became very popular. Seeing her videos everyone asked their mothers to listen to her and use her stories in real life

She also says that it is important to have an elder who teaches good things. These days she is also getting many opportunities from TV channels and now she is telling about Panchatantra in news channels.