Tall Tales is India’s premier storytelling series and has hosted over 100 live shows featuring everyday people telling true stories about their lives. Through those shows we have featured over 200 stories and 20 of the best ones are published in a book by Rupa in India. In a bid to discover, shape and eventually share more stories we are starting Your Story Labs.
What is the lab?
This is a small, guided lab for people who feel they’re carrying a story—but can’t quite locate it yet.
Over the course of the lab, we slow down and pay attention to lived moments that have stayed with you for reasons you may not fully understand yet. Moments you’ve skipped over. Rationalised. Minimised. Or never said out loud.
The work here is not about inventing meaning. It’s about noticing where meaning has already been insisting.
This lab exists to help you find your story worth staying with.
What to expect
The lab moves at a deliberate pace. You can expect:
- guided prompts that help surface memories without forcing them
- quiet time to think, write, and notice patterns
- simple narrative tools that help you see where a story begins, turns, and resists clarity
- listening—to others, and to yourself—without critique or fixing
Sharing is always optional. Silence is allowed. Uncertainty is not something to overcome here—it’s part of the process. This is a space for fumbling, circling, and discovering what you didn’t know you were holding.
Please note: this is a Non-AI zone and we will be using your memories and your voice to discover your story.
What people get out of it
People don’t leave with a polished story. They leave knowing which story is theirs to tell next—and why it matters.
Most participants leave with:
- a single lived moment that now feels impossible to ignore
- a clearer sense of what their authentic voice sounds like
- permission to take their own memory and story seriously
- language for an experience they’ve never fully articulated
- a felt understanding of what makes a story “true,” even before it’s shaped
Some leave with the beginning of a story. Some leave with the middle. Some leave simply knowing where to start. All of those are valid outcomes here.
This lab is about discovery, not delivery. About attention, not output. A story doesn’t need to be extraordinary to be worth telling. It just needs to be yours—and worth saying out loud, properly.
About the Facilitator:
Akshay Gajria is writer and storyteller based in London. He holds an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London with a focus on Writing the Self. He’s ghostwritten three memoirs. He’s also a storyteller and swing regional producer with The Moth and he tells true stories live on stage which are featured on Tall Tales, True Story London, The Moth Radio Hour, and Spark Storytelling. He remains confused whether he is a tea or a coffee person and if you prod him politely, he’ll launch into a story.
Logistics:
The lab will be held on Saturday 21 February 2026 at Fictionary Bookshop in Mumbai. You must register in advance. You do not need to bring anything with you, though a pen and paper is always welcome.
This will be a small intimate group of 10 people. Tickets are on first come first basis. Get them soon.
More
This mini lab is part of a larger campaign to help discover, shape and eventually share true stories from individuals who have lived them. The campaign is called The Stories We Never Learnt To Tell and the online 4 week labs are a place dedicated to shaping these stories.
You can read more about those labs here.
Event Venue
Fictionary Bookstore & Cafe, Gharaonda, Ground Floor, National College Lane, Plot # 558, 32nd Rd, TPS III, Bandra West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400050, India
INR 1000.00 to INR 1299.00
