A Story Weaver By Chance Meet Vani Balaraman Of Cuddles And Reads

Somethings happen by chance. For Vani Balaraman, it was storytelling. Founder of Cuddles and Reads, storyteller and mom, Vani liter ally stumbled upon storytelling and found a vent to the story weaver in her. Find out more about her in this interview.

I work for a technology company, I also double up as a bed time story teller, a terrible cook, a highly imaginative Piscean, and I take great delight in cooking up stories – most of which strike me when I am on the way to work, and stuck in a traffic jam. To that effect I should thank the Bengaluru traffic for turning me into what I am today!

I was born and brought up in a small town in Tamil Nadu, Neyveli where I spent my growing up years. I have enjoyed a truly cherished childhood thanks to my mom who left no stones unturned to ensure we had the best experiences. No wonder I love the illustrations and stories in books published by Indian publications delightful, as compared to international titles.

I want my stories to reflect the beauty of our country and its rich culture.

In 2012, I was at work and was looking for activities for my son who was 2.5 years then. Back then, I wasn’t aware of story workshops, kids’ events and libraries. I was just another working mom, with a small kid in the daycare, that fell sick often and me battling the corporate. It was September and when I look back now, I have no idea how I landed on Pratham books blog and learnt that a champion program was happening 2 days later on World Literacy day.

With just 2 days in hand for preparation, and with neither a hard copy of the storybook nor a banner in hand, I went ahead to do my first ever story event with just a color print out of the story – Susheela’s Kolam! The story is hence very dear to me and so is Pratham books and all their events! That was when Storytelling wasn’t as popular as it is today. I hadn’t visited a single event before. What I per formed that day for kids from our apartments, was my first brush with storytelling and I think I fared well. This year in 2016, I would complete my 5th year as a Pratham books champion.

Now when I look back, I think I always had a passion for stories. Even as a child, I wrote pretty good essays in school. While a Bachelors degree in Engineering and surviving the corporate might have blurred my true calling, I am glad I went back to doing what I did best as a child. Today I take story writing and spinning a tale as the best gift given to me, so as to strike a work life balance, something which is a MUST for every corporate individual!

On the very same evening in 2012, I attended a Pratham books champion’s story event, organized at Atta Galatta, Bengaluru, by a bunch of theater enthusiasts. I was curious to know how different storytellers per form the same story. Atta Galatta was then operating out of their bungalow in Koramangala, in a lane laden with the most beautiful bungalows and old oak trees. Again my brush with Atta Galatta happened accident ally and since then there has been no looking back. I have attended various events, book launches, and even went on to per form at their book store for the Pratham Champion event.

Cuddles and Reads was started primarily to chronicle the many events I attended in Bengaluru. Now it has turned into a space where I share my passion for writing, narrating stories and providing reviews on books I enjoy reading or narrating to my son. I also share details of events happening across cities. It is a mixed bag where I share my passion for books, stories, story writing, story narration, etc.

People who per form put in a lot of effort to bring the best to the audience. Today social media is the nicest plat form to say a THANK YOU to them and when I feel truly touched by a per formance, I do a huge shout out on my page to THANK them.

It is tough and difficult. Because your corporate job keeps you so busy!.

I would love to take my stories that I have penned to many schools, activity centers and Kid-lit festivals. On many mornings, I keep dreaming about story events – what I could do with a certain book or a story but most of it remains a dream – because my work hours consume most of my time!

Moral

Chance encounters with purposeful people teach us that readiness – skill, kindness, attentiveness – transforms accidents into opportunities. The storyteller’s genuine interest in human connection made the meeting fruitful.

Historical & Cultural Context

Aesop’s Fables are short animal tales traditionally attributed to the enslaved Greek storyteller Aesop (c. 620–564 BCE). Each fable compresses a moral into a vivid scene, and through Latin, Arabic and European retellings they became a backbone of moral education worldwide.

This contemporary metafictional tale celebrates the role of storytellers themselves – echoing Aesop’s own tradition as a transmitter of moral wisdom. The interview format (meeting Vani Balaraman) modernizes the ancient practice of collecting and preserving stories, much as the Panchatantra was gathered and refined across centuries to guide learners.

Reflection & Discussion

1. What prepared the storyteller to recognize the value of meeting Vani?
2. How can being genuinely curious about others change your life?
3. What would have happened if the storyteller had rushed past the chance meeting?

Did You Know?

• Aesop was believed to be a slave in ancient Greece around 620–564 BCE.
• Aesop’s Fables have been retold for over 2,500 years across virtually every culture.
• Many common English phrases like “sour grapes” and “crying wolf” come from Aesop’s Fables.

What This Tale Teaches Us Today

Old stories keep their power because their lessons never stop being useful. Here is how this one still applies:

• Traditional stories remind us that wisdom belongs to many cultures. No single tradition holds all the answers.
• Every folk tale is also a time machine – a small window into how our ancestors thought about the world.
• Shared stories are one of the strongest bonds within any community – families, cultures, or whole nations.

Why This Story Still Matters

A Story Weaver By Chance Meet Vani Balaraman Of Cuddles And Reads joins a vast global library of folk tales that human beings have been telling one another for thousands of years. Every culture has produced its own stories, but the deepest themes – courage, kindness, cleverness, loyalty, the cost of greed – appear again and again in different clothes. Modern readers who spend time with folk tales inherit something precious: a sense that people have always wrestled with the same basic questions, and that good stories can still help us find good answers. That is why these tales persist. Each one is a small tool for living, handed down quietly through generations.

Cultural Context and Continuing Influence

Folk tales like this one survived for hundreds of years through oral storytelling before any scholar thought to write them down. Grandparents told them to grandchildren, travelers traded them along roads and rivers, and mothers repeated them to babies who would one day repeat them to their own children. Each small retelling sharpened the story, discarded unnecessary parts, and polished the essential lesson. That long process of refinement is why a good folk tale feels so weighty – it has been shaped by thousands of listeners across generations, each contributing something small to the story we read today.

Modern readers sometimes wonder whether folk tales are still relevant in an age of apps and smartphones. The answer is yes, perhaps more than ever. The technology changes, but the underlying questions – about kindness, courage, loyalty, greed, family, fear, love – do not. These are the same questions that children asked around a fire in ancient India, around a hearth in medieval Ireland, around a campfire in 19th-century Korea. And they are the same questions children ask their parents today, just phrased differently. That is why a family that reads folk tales together is doing real cultural and emotional work, not simply entertaining itself.

Reading Folk Tales With Children

Reading folk tales aloud to children is one of the oldest and most effective forms of moral education. Unlike a lecture or a rule, a story slides past a child’s natural resistance and plants its lesson in the imagination, where it quietly grows. Years later, when the child meets a real situation that resembles the story – a bully at school, a dishonest coworker, a moment of temptation – the old tale rises to the surface of memory and offers guidance. That is why parents and teachers across every culture have trusted stories to do the work of raising good humans, long before formal schools or textbooks existed.

When reading this story with a young listener, try pausing at key moments and asking what the child thinks will happen next. Let them guess, even if they are wrong. That small act of prediction turns a passive listener into an active thinker. After the story ends, a simple open question – “What would you have done?” or “Who do you think was the smartest character?” – invites the child to connect the tale to their own life. Those conversations are where real learning happens, not during the reading itself but in the quiet moments that follow.

Older children and teenagers sometimes think they have outgrown folk tales. In reality, the best tales only deepen with age. A ten-year-old hears the surface plot; a fifteen-year-old notices the irony; a twenty-year-old sees the economic and political pressures on the characters; a forty-year-old understands the parents in the story for the first time. A good folk tale is a gift that keeps unfolding for decades. Families who read and reread the same stories across the years discover this naturally, and pass the discovery down.