About Us
We are storytellers from india.
Modern school education imparts worldly knowledge and while being appreciative of the fact that schools aim at holistic education, it’s important for us that we also imbibe the values hidden in our stories.
In ancient days gurukul education aimed at taking care of the individual thus nurturing the ‘Being’. It is presumed that a good, balanced, integrated, truthful, clean, transparent person will be more useful to oneself, family, society, nation, nature and humanity at large. Holistic education is ‘Being oriented’. Details of working with ‘being oriented’ aspect have been outlined in various living traditions and texts and the method contributing to this important field is enumerated in our texts.
Stories we discuss reflect a love for ecological balance, tolerance towards other systems of thought and a compassionate outlook towards all creations. Mythological stories of all hues and colors is considered panacea for a meaningful life and living.
We would like to practice and teach through our stories, the ability to embrace all cultures, tolerance for those systems of beliefs who oppose our thought process or set of beliefs, and to inculcate gender sensitivity and impart a non-judgmental attitude towards people and adaptability to conditions and circumstances arising in life, especially on coping with adversities.
Finally, and most importantly using proper discretion in making the right choices and having the right discrimination to keep away from evil and embrace all the goodness in the world.
We started KathaVani to become the number-one story tellers from India. We have a group of passionate story tellers who are ready to amaze you.
Our Storytellers
Meet our fantastic storytellers.
Surya Swapna
Based out of Indonesia, grew up in India with a typical childhood involving initiation into classical music and classical dance from a young age of four, chanting slokas, listening to the stories from the great epics. Living in states outside the one I belong to, helped me in cultural immersions while picking up other Indian languages. My growing up days were a constant struggle to connect back to the roots of my hometown and trying to figure out what all those slokas, songs and stories of Gods were trying to communicate to my young mind. I hence founded KathaVani with a vision of connecting young minds to the stories, sounds and vibrations around them, comprehending and absorbing what it means and forming their own views. Professionally I am a Computer Science engineer turned into a mythology scholar and sociologist with gender and Indian mythology as my research subjects. As a mythology storyteller I have been specifically dealing with Vedic stories, interpretations from epics, puranas and scriptures. After my decade long stint with Information technology industry and traveling around the globe, I turned to storytelling and in enriching experiences with puppets, music and folklore.
Jaya Balantrapu
Jaya Balantrapu is a progressive educator and a career counsellor having worked in a range of domains across her career. She has completed her Masters in Economics and has worked as an educator in the domains of Economics and Business Studies. Worked in the fields of marketing, training in different counties of Africa and India. Storytelling was a passion from childhood for Jaya, which she picked up from her grandmother. After her post graduation in Economics, married and moved to Gujarat and then to Africa for almost 20yrs and now returned and settled in Chennai. Wore many hats in her life as teacher, Sales n marketing executive, Soft skills trainer but in all fields used stories to explain the concepts and for results.