It was a pleasant experience to watch a group of school children, unfamiliar with each other, discussing, disagreeing, exchanging ideas without shouting each other down and finally producing a creative work – as a unified team.

Of course, with a mentor like adman and lyricist, Prasoon Joshi, the children were all eyes and ears.

The two-day creative writing workshop, Write&Read, in New Delhi was hosted by two very diverse entities – technology company Hewlett Packard (HP) and non-Governmental organisation Katha.

For HP, it was part of ‘corporate social responsibility' and for Katha, an extension of the work already being done to promote creativity among children from diverse social backgrounds.

The purpose was to get all the children to individually produce short stories at the end of the workshop.

The short-listed ones would be published in the form of a book. “We are expecting a total of 1,500 stories from all the workshops, of which 30-50 will be selected. These will later be translated into regional languages so that children who do not know English can also read them”, said Gowri Palachandran, Director (Kanchi), Katha.

Among the schools that participated in Delhi were Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Modern School, Sriram School and Ryan International.

What added to the festive atmosphere at the workshop was the colourful display of books and festoons.

Customised cards printed by HP's Wi-Fi-enabled ePrint technology were also exhibited.

The ePrint technology makes printing as easy as sending an SMS, says HP. So, if you are on vacation, at home or at business, a simple click on your digital camera or smart phone will deliver your photos or documents into the print trays of your friends, family or office staff.

And, who better than children to introduce the latest in technology!

> aditi.n@thehindu.co.in

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