Travellers on a Kerala jaunt will soon be able to grab the opportunity of discovering the little known lore behind the state’s tourist destinations. The little known and unwritten historical tales will be collated to make destinations and travel more attractive to tourists. The project is being implemented by the Kerala state-owned Bekal Resorts Development Corporation (BRDC) and is expected to get going in March.
With a comprehensive ‘story-telling’ tourism project, the unwritten historical and cultural tales of behind places will be documented, collated and retold to travellers. The project aims to attract the new-age foreign tourists who prefer to know and experience the history and culture of the land over going on a sightseeing tour. The idea is to make the destinations more appealing to the tourists by sharing stories and thereby make travel more of an experience.
The story-telling project will be launched in Bekal. The project was approved at a meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Tom Jose, said BRDC Managing Director T K Manzoor. Kerala Tourism Secretary Rani George and Kerala Tourism Director P Bala Kiran also attended the meeting.
The project aims to bestow upon foreign tourists a phenomenal travel experience by compiling and preserving uncharted and unrecorded historical tales about places including ancient history, folklore and geographical elements. Apart from help preserve the many unwritten and undocumented lores about the villages, the project will ensure that the journey becomes more of an endearing experience for the travellers.
A comprehensive program is being envisaged towards compiling and publishing the historical narratives and stories. Workshops, seminars and community meets -Nattukoottams will be held along with special training for storytelling entrepreneurs.
As a first step, workshops will be organised among various experts from different fields such as writers and researchers. Storytelling entrepreneurs also will be taken part. Community meets will be organised to discuss tales of the bygone era and historical records. Later, the dissertations prepared in the form of stories by experts will be made into books in English, Malayalam and later into other languages. The content will include the real history of a particular tourist place along with pictures. The anecdotes will be introduced to both foreign and domestic tourists via modern technologies.
G. Ambujakshan at Bekal Fort
Tourists can then embark on the storytelling journeys which will be made memorable with historical, little known nuggets of information. Such stories will be narrated by trained entrepreneurs enabling travellers to see places and understand its historical facts, all at the same time.
Myths, life stories, agriculture, folk arts, rituals, all will be studied and presented as part of this programme. Thus the compositions will be an amalgamation of experiences, lives, myths and legends. Historical records and other remnants like Muniyaras, Kudakkallu, Thoppikkallu, Surangas, Mukkuthi wells, ancient weapons, coins etc., all of which are being lost to oblivion, will also be recorded.
