‘Kathakar 2022’, a two days marquee event to revive the traditional style of storytelling kicked off in the national capital on Friday and culminated on Saturday.

Union Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju kick-started the two-day event on Friday evening, recalling how he, during his childhood, would come down from his village on the hilltops to Tezpur town in Assam to watch cinema.

“Those days it was not accessible easily and when we would get an opportunity to come down to the city, where four cinema halls were operational, I would end up watching five movies in a day as we were to make the most of it,” he said while delivering the special address.

“Stories emerging from villages are very powerful as life is totally different there…I love folk songs and stories that are connected to our lives. Whenever I meet filmmakers, I urge them to make movies based on stories from villages,” he said, while looking at acclaimed filmmaker, writer and producer Imtiaz Ali, who was sitting beside him on the stage.

The minister sprang a surprise by singing a song along with famous songwriter and composer Mohit Chauhan from the blockbuster ‘Sholay’ – ‘Yeh dosti hum nahi chhodenge’. Chauhan, who is the patron of the festival and also the cultural envoy of Mongolia in India, reminisced over how the two of them during their free time would sing folk songs and cherish the folk tales.

Union Minister of State for Culture. Meenakshi Lekhi, who lit the lamp along with Rijiju to mark the beginning of the event at Sunder Nursery, adjacent to the imposing Humayun’s tomb, also shared some incidents of her college days, telling how she, in order to prove her point of view on ghosts, accepted a challenge to visit a graveyard in the middle of night during a college trip.

“I agreed but was caught by the teacher accompanying the students on the trip, and the plan to visit the graveyard could not materialise,” she said, laughingly.

Mrs Lekhi and Mr Rijiju along with other guests also launched the book, ‘Curious Tales from the Desert’, written by Shaguna and Prarthana Gahilote, who are also the curators of the festival along with their sister Rachna Gahilote Bisht.

Sharing his thoughts on the occasion, Imtiaz Ali said since both the Union Ministers present at the event wanted the filmmakers to come up with more films on ghosts, he would certainly think over the idea and come up with good stories on the subject.