Geeta Dharmarajan's Katha targets 150 mn school children who cannot read

Geeta Dharmarajan has changed scores of children's lives through its retellings

Few will even recognise the name Sengalipuram Anantarama Dikshitar. One of the great story-tellers in Tamil, Dikshitar often held his sessions at temples in Tamil Nadu, earning a modest living from his enthralling story-telling.

It was at her neighbourhood temple, the Shiva Vishnu Kovil in Chennai’s Mambalam, that Geeta Dharmarajan first heard Dikshitar, a man who could “weave magic with his words”. He could bring the past into the present, move effortlessly between geographies, time zones, distant and present cultures. He would link today’s happenings with tales of yore, bringing alive characters of the Mahabharata or Ramayana and drawing comparisons with