About

PORUL’s story:

How wonderful to have you here at People, Objects, Relationships, Unearthing, Logs – PORUL, on this journey with me.

I knew that porul meant thing or object in Tamil. I recently also found out (one of those moments of ah, how wonderful) that porul also means wealth, something that’s important in life, “meaning, sense, goal, purpose or essence”* So here we are. 

PORUL is home for ALL our stories, emotions, connections, histories (past and the living histories, connected histories!) dreams, memories, curiosities, wonders with objects around us, in our lives. None, small or big, literally and figuratively, each story, precious in its own way. Stories of objects that call us connect with us in some way. Bring to us many emotions, such that there are objects we yearn to be around of, some we dream of, some that we may keep yet not in sight, hidden, and some that we feel curious about, we wonder.  Home, beyond borders, age groups, connections that we all feel, (so eager to experience them all) . Home to ponder, share and wonder, perhaps even move on to journeys ahead.

The seed for PORUL was within me for a long while, before that one moment, where I felt I must see what it becomes, with love, wonder, “feeling moved” and a dear friend’s egging me on when I spoke to her over an evening walk “hey , you must see where it takes you and us”

My story

wearing Paati’s saree in this picture above, 🙂

Believer of a warm, holding, healing space, the magic of every day moments in our lives, in our interconnected lives. Dreams intrigue me. And wonder, (lightness) and the light within us call out to me too.
Storyteller, writer, expressive arts based practitioner, mentor, saathi companion. I find myself on this journey doing what I can towards bringing people, closer to themselves and more bonded to each other through story and expression. I seek to contribute to help people reflect, heal, grow and live fulfilling and wonder-filled lives.

My storytelling initiative is called The Bright Lamp Storytells.  Under this initiative, some of the circles, spaces I’ve had the opportunity, joy and honour to  facilitate are the “Healing Hope Heart Story circle”, “Bonding over our stories and songs”, “Hum Circle”, “Story you, story me, story we” (stories for children and families), and “The Light and Joy of Storytelling” (sharing, exploring, learning, growing and inspiring through storytelling).
I have an Engineering degree from the University of Mumbai, and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada.  Worked in technology and marketing analytics before moving to Bangalore and into the world of stories and storytelling.  I am excited to be discovering life and the world through the lens of stories about the inter-connectedness of it all, and glad to be sharing with everyone I meet.  I am part of Indian Storytellers Healing Network (ISHN) and a member of FEAST (Federation of Asian Story Tellers).

Musafir hun yaaro,.
Love and Light,
Ramya

Some more about PORUL and me – 

Right from the time I remember, along with feeling close to my people, I’ve felt close to objects too and in many cases objects connected to my people and even otherwise. I would collect (and still many of them) letters, travel tickets of moments, chocolate wrapper, pebbles, dried flowers , leaves, a bat shaped eraser from school day :), photos in my purse, my purse itself mum’s old purse when she switched purses (i still use it), the list goes on…. so many emotions

Gathering objects for home, objects I carried as I transitioned travelled added homes, beautiful things I’ve inherited, my Paati’s saree, old vessels lamps, more recently , mud from the home my Appa grew up in. What we surround ourselves within and around us that really matter so much, or make us wonder…

Collecting, gathering, curating, keeping forevers….

In my storytelling and expressive arts journeys; with friends, mentors, mentees, companions – objects as companions, compassionate witnesses,  playing with objects, window to our inner world, familiar objects to ground us, to help us be in the present, objects as parts of us, objects that make us wonder, I remember having a beautiful time mentoring my bachchas for storytelling and the seed I could bring was objects from our lives (my own kids who would so excitedly take a part of them an object for show and tell so regularly to school), objects that brought memories, songs, objects as gifts

In my mindfulness class, where our teacher nudged us to look around our outside and notice how it connects with how we are on the inside…

Being drawn to archives, grateful to a friend for the oral history conversations grateful to a friend, To leading me to living connections, history. A poem that came to me – Heartmade, A dear friend who spoke to me and mentioned a book with beautiful emotional stories of materials, objects from history, emotional times(will write about it soon in ponderings) and so much more. A friend who introduced me to the beautiful book by Patricia Polacco – “The Keepsake quilt”, it’s wonderful she was also the one who introduced me to “Bubba aaji chi oobdar shawl”, by Rutuja Ghate, Jyotsna Prakashan very recently and more

a heartmedown book from my nephew to my twins, has my heart

As a mother, with young children, pondering on objects, materials “materialistic”, gifts, “too little or too much?”, questioning, pondering, wondering on which objects hold meaning – the story, creation, legacy and so on which objects do we love sharing and so on

All of this led to me adding to my one-day-I’ll-create-write list, a book on objects kept wondering whether it would be for children / adults or both (because I love children’s books and love to bring them in spaces with adult companions too.) And I would keep adding to the list

And somehow most recently, as I sat to see imagine the book (Grateful to a friend who nudged me with enthusiasm) right now at this moment I feel – how would be to have that Home (PORUL – people objects relationships unearthing logs :)) , a space for all these stories for ALL of us all around –  not far, connected to all, and perhaps it may become a book one day with thoughts to ponder upon, insights sifted, but the intention is about having a space to share, listen, bond, wonder, ponder ….

….and like all stories, they are always becoming, we are always becoming….

And somehow *conversations with Amma and

https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/porul; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porul_(Kural_book)