This workshop explored how stories function, and how we function in the process of reading them. By closely examining specific pieces of writing - Mahasweta Devi’s “ Chinta”, newspaper reports on the current Imrana controversy, and a text presently used in the classroom – Professor Tharoor analysed the ideas and attitudes that emerge from the writing as well as the teachers’ responses and what they reflect about the prevailing culture.

In the workshop, through active reading and discussion, the participants engaged closely with the texts to go beyond the surface meanings and discern the patterns images and phrases that reveal underlying ideologies and attitudes.