We are taking ours bows fairy tale hunters as we slip from the views of our hosts on this side of the world. We tread lightly on the final pages of our magical fairy tale adventure in the land of story-telling that is India. Let’s take a flutter through our pages of discovery….

Ah yes we’ll begin with those footsteps. They were great clues and reminded me of all those that have made our path possible by showing us the way ahead. They were pressed into the freezing morning snow, printed by other collectors from across the globe and traced by the local artists. We followed their leads to new discoveries.

My album is fit to burst with the smiles of our path and here are just some of the faces that enjoyed joining our journey.

The fairy Tale Hunter has been welcomed, fed and watered by the company of new friends. These are some of the thresholds, first footings and mountain steps I was invited over. You can find out who they are on the shelves in the teachers cupboard.

Magical creatures often lurch around corners, just out of site and sound. We had to keep all our senses ready so we could capture a glimpse.

We all know that it’s under the bridges where the biggest ones lie in waiting. Remember all those amazing rivers that carried their stories to the ocean.

Fairy Tales can be scary can’t they! Remember how some-times I had to look into the back of dark caves.

Then there are all those stories! Once upon a time under the talking tree I was told a story by a person of the mountains and just a few of the stories that we now carry in our memory and imagination are below

The Fish daughter. How she battled to save the life of Mani from the land above.

The collection of Wolf and Goat tales and new games we learnt.

Our own imagination bristled with furry Yeti coats.

AND we succeeded in our quest to the snowy encrusted roof of the world, by finding new friends in the land of the Lepcha and their The Fairy Tales of the Yeti.

As we have searched we have used the internet as a creative art tool. We have scribbled and scratched in sketch books; snapped digital photos, rang out digital sound recordings and stretched videos. Below are a few pages I’ve clipped together, I wonder if you can remember them. Take a look in my bag of tricks to see a lot more of the pages from my sketch book.

My sketch book is like a Thakurmar Jhuli (a grandmother’s basket full of stories and memories). Sometimes there are Raksha and sometimes Bhut and now yeti fairy tales.

Above are just a few of the artists that have made this journey possible and you can find the rest of us in the Teacher’s Cupboard!

The above farewell track was performed by  Ansuman Biswas (you can find his work at www.ansuman.com) at Bodhti Tree, Kolkata (12.03.12). He is an artist currently working in the schools and university of Visva-Bharati in Shantiniketan.

So that’s my bag of tricks packed! Thank you to all the lands and their peoples that we have travelled to on our Hunt for Fairy Tales of the Yeti and bon-voyage from the roof of the world.