Weaving a story out of the five chosen emotions was an exercise in embodying them. It got me thinking of when what is felt and how one feeling leads to another. The process of constructing a narrative to hold these abstract emotions in a more tangible storyline led me to develop new images of what these emotions could mean.

I made my story about a journey – a long road trip from Delhi to Coorg to western ghats and back to Delhi. It featured adventures along the way. The narration turned out to be a rush, thus it took the qualities of a road trip where I was overwhelmed with all the experiences.

Mugdha’s story was about her dealing with the gloominess of the pandemic, finding a way out and making a truce with the circumstances offered by time. Her way of playing this story was heavy on gestures and with an impeccable hold on voice modulation and her energy changed. I was going the way her voice, hands and body were taking me.

Ketki’s story was about her memorable college trip to kutch. The way she narrated the events of the story I was left wanting to know ‘what next?’ constantly. Her speech and body were one while she took us on her adventure with us. The incidents she chose to talk about during the beginning middle and end also fit perfectly into the narrative giving it a nice closure for the audience (us). All of us got to see a different side of Ketki in the way she narrated this story.

Charvi’s story was about the previous day and all the feelings she went through over different events of the day. Her story was special because unlike Mugdha or Charvi’s story it didn’t have a journey, chaos that comes with adventures or finding a way out of misery. It was a tale of a day, a day that happens every day. Although less of a story and more of a reflection on the day, I enjoyed listening to her take on the previous day because it was relatable for me. I was part of her day and her narration.

Stories were now out in the air and lived in the room for a couple of weeks while we gave them new form.