Stories and Storytelling
Between “Once upon a time” and “the end!”
Recently I was asked the question- What do you think is a ‘story’ and why do children love
stories?
That got me thinking about the fascinating world of ‘stories’. A world free of any laws, rules,
restrictions, do’s and don’ts. A world where everyone has a voice, and everything has a tale to
tell!
Stories have always been an integral part of human history. The way of interaction and
communication. They have been a medium to make sense of the world. They have been around
from the time humans have walked the Earth. In many shapes, forms, mediums, styles- they
remain that common thread between people, cutting across borders and divide, both imaginary
and manmade.
Evidence have shown that humans have always had a long history of oral story telling. Oral
stories are a repertoire of oral history of people. They hold a wealth of knowledge of experiences
spanning, life worlds, ailments and cure, cultivation and child rearing, communities and ways to
care. Ancient civilizations and indigenous communities of today from around the world still rely
on oral history. They have been shared as myths, legends, religious practices and social belief.
The earliest enduring concrete evidence of storytelling can be found in the cave paintings of
ancient civilizations, like the Lascaux cave in France, dating back over 17,000 years.
However, today’s story is not about the history of stories. It a story about how stories became
our voices to tell our own story.
Near our college, there used to be a small ‘restaurant’. More of a ‘shack’ by today’s terminology.
It very much had a restaurant vibe for us back then. We used to go there for chicken rolls.,
which we would have standing outside on the hot busy pavement. Sometimes when the hostel
bell and our pockets would permit, sit inside for plates of steaming momo and bowls of thukpa!
That place birthed many stories of love and heart break, of how to evade our hostel matron and
make that ‘not allowed’ phone call (there were no mobile phones). Our hostel matron would sit
right in front of the telephone, the only landline connection, and stare into our faces as we had
our nervous conversations with whoever was on the other side!
Now, almost 30 years later, whenever our college friends meet, we still reminiscence about those
days, telling the stories repeatedly! Laughing, reliving and filling gaps in the narratives. Every
time we seem to remember a new detail!
They are not mere stories, they are memories, shaping who we are, telling us who we were.
Each of us hold such innumerable bittersweet memories within ourselves, some shared, some
buried within ourselves, never to be revealed.
Stories are a part of us or are we a part of stories?
I would think the former. Our identity is one of many such stories. Some incidents remembered
as they were, for some, the lines between reality and imagination has become a little blurred
perhaps. We remember some as we would want them to be remembered, holding onto snatches
of conversations, proximity, love and longing that were ephemeral and elusive.
I often imagine stories for myself. A future where “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain
of my soul”. Where I have the freedom to choose. My choices ranging from my glass of wine to
whom I can love. Stories give us a sense of power. An agency which is perhaps not so easily
acquired. It enables us to imagine an alternative world. Where we have the freedom to think. A
space to be set free, an escape. An escape from whatever has been imposed upon.
Through stories we get to imagine adventures, love, exhilaration, societies, roles that life denies.
They reflect the reader, and they shape the reader as well. Reading reviews of any popular book
would reveal the spectrum of interpretation they elicit. It reveals the reader. It lays bare the
ideology, the belief system, the social understanding, the political belief, the ethos and values of
the reader. They are a revelation of the individual character and through them the social
character of a particular time frame the reader might belong to. We have heard, “A man is
known by the company he keeps”. The company of the stories one remembers, tells, listens to or
reads and watches, could be counted as well!
“We are the only creature that does this unusual thing of telling stories to each other to
understand the kind of creature we are” Salman Rushdie (Masterclass on Storytelling and
Writing)
Walking into a classroom full of children, nothing works like magic as stories. Recently reading
‘Diwaswapan’ by Gijubhai Badheka, with a group of friends, reiterated this conviction on story
telling in classrooms. The imagination with which a child can transcend a banal act like ‘walking
to school’ perhaps is a clear indicator to their scale of creativity. Any conversation with teachers
working with children will bear testimony to the innumerable incidents when a simple
conversation or remark has blossomed to extraordinary narrations, views, creativity, interactions
and ideas. They unfold into stories into no time. Every child holds a story within themselves,
some possible and many not so possible, but nothing ‘impossible’! There is no room for
‘impossibility’ in their world view! Everything can have a story, everyone can have a voice, every
being can experience emotions, and every conflict can be resolved! Stories are the key to explore
this wonderous world between reality and make belief! The benefit of stories in the children’s life
is manifold and multifaceted. It requires a major discussion.
Stories and storytelling are an intimate part of our lives. Right from birth to death, we are but
anthology of tales. Some we write ourselves and some are written by others. Some are narrated
by us, and some are retold by others. Some stories get an audience and some does not. Amidst
the pages of our life’s book, we look for solace, kindness, love, dreams, desires, wants and
drama. We seek fulfilment of our lives through the imaginations of others, the writers and the
story tellers. The carefree imagination with which children weave their stories gets eroded as we
age. We become too ‘real’ perhaps, and hence our stories become stories of others. Imagined,
written and told by many voices but our own.
Through the characters they weave, writers and storyteller give us that courage to write our own
life stories. Without them, the courage would be lost. We need our stories and our story tellers.
It is perhaps also the time to reclaim back our stories and tell them our way!