As the conspiring deities of weather and global warming hold London under the siege of cold, lashing rain, thunder and flooding, the city’s denizens are allowed only a few brief moments of blinking sunlight, as a token of summer. Dusk provides no respite from the urban hurly-burly either, as the city carries on rushing, hypnotised by its own inertia, on this most popular of days, Friday, when the British five-day week ends.

Theatre director, Vayu Naidu is leading a show at an intimately warm gallery Noble Sage, located in East Finchley located confusingly, in the North of London. Here she is doing what she does best: telling stories, and in this case, to a London audience from varied age groups.

Vayu’s work, though rooted in Indian classical dance, her performance arts company, based in the UK, is dedicated to promoting storytelling theatre that brings together multiracial theatre writers, storytellers and performers who together create shows which are contemporary, original and enriched by diverse cultural experiences.

Salt and pepper-haired and sari-clad Vayu Naidu, arrived on stage, a picture of grace and mesmerised us with her expressive eyes, mellifluous voice and ancient tales of love, war, healing and death.

Like the timeless storyteller, she starts by getting our attention, “I want you to leave the rain, thunder, floods and winds behind and come with me.”

And so we go, adults and children, enchanted, into the world of mythology, miracles and magic.

We make an effortless climb up the Himalayas and witness Shiva yield his celibacy to a woman of dazzling eyes and scissor-sharp tongue, though not astounding beauty. We are reminded that she is a princess and a goddess whom rich princes want to marry. But she chooses the anti-Establishment king of the mountains, “The hippy among the Hindu gods.” With a little help from Kama, the two become the lovers that is the stuff of epics, giving birth to the first ancient storyteller and deity, Ganesha.

The evening’s repertoire, which Vayu has adapted for the event, consists of stories woven around the paintings in the gallery by south Indian artists like KM Adimoolam, Ravi Shankar, G. Raman and Tasaduq Sohail. Therefore the name of the event: Southern Sojourn.

It includes the story of Arjuna (depicted in Adimoolam’s painting) and his star-crossed love affair with warrior princess, Chitrangada who refuses to be subordinated to the rank of ‘wife’, even if it meant being with a man whom she loved dearly. The inky hues of Adimoolam’s medium are aptly layered as the love story ends in separation and is not the conventional morality tale derived from religious text, also famously depicted in Tagore’s play about a woman’s search for self-knowledge .

Other tales of passion feature fabled beauty, Vasanthasena in court; and other tales of hunting and battles in the fields of love and war derived from folk, legend and the epics.

This event is being marketed as part of a festival, India Now that has been organised by the Mayor of London, where hundreds of events have been lined up, some free to attend, aimed at promoting cultural understanding of the large and growing Indian community in London.

The city, now home to people from around the world, is being promoted as a centre of ‘cultural excellence’ that all the diversity has brought. On any given evening, one can watch Senegalese Jazz or attend an evening of Flamenco dancing, a Chinese Shaolin circus or Estonian choir singers. Southern Sojourn is one such event that represents city’s rich cultural tapestry. The fact that London’s diversity can be marketed as its currency, attracting students, businesses, creativity and cash from around the world, is not rocket science.

The exhaustion at the end of a week in London, far exceeds the possibilities of the following week’s promises. This charm siren-like, makes London the relentlessly attractive place it is today.

Storytelling as a entertaining and non-didactic means of preserving culture, is seeing a revival in many western countries including the UK, not just because of the country’s Asian and African communities. It is also being adapted into the national school curriculum, according to Vayu - a national project that she is providing her expertise for.

The folkloric style of narrating myth and legend is universally being recognised as a way to break the monotony of the vast entertainment industry oriented around TV and DVD.

The style lends itself well to the creativity of someone like Vayu: her directorial aptitude for dramatisation, the improvisational ability of a good public speaker, facility as a dancer and of course knowledge of stories, all come into play.

The audience is a healthy mix of those who roughly know what kind of an evening to expect and others, culture-seekers, simply looking for something ‘different’.

Vayu’s stories and the masterful paintings, had the audience infused with wonder and amongst them a few, undoubtedly, responded with homesick nostalgia. For a few hours, we were transported away from the dread and mysteries of London, to places in our minds that are sacred, imagined and from a distance of two continents, idealised.

The evening was a success and reminded spectators, desis and not, that there is an effective and refreshing way of having an Indian cultural experience which at the Southern Sojourn, consisted of five different paintings, five assorted legends and not one song and dance sequence.

Divya Guha is a freelance writer. She holds an MA in Journalism