Stories

I've always loved stories. Hearing and telling them. Asking my dad for just one more story till he fell asleep narrating extended my bedtime by an hour on so many nights when I was young. As I grew older, I had my own stories. Most were based very very losely on reality, some were complete imagination. Time passed and I heard so many more stories. I had my own completely true stories too, to accompany the ones with a dash of imagination or maybe reality. I realised that I wanted to tell my stories. That I wanted to share them with the world. I wanted to swap stories because I had realised that stories are important. They enrich our lives and give them depth. They are the greatest way in which we may live on because when we hear a story from a good Story Teller, we feel exactly as he/she feels. We laugh and weep and wonder just as they do. Because they are the imbodiment of the soul of the story. The story is theirs. Not because they lived it, but because they felt it truly.

A friend of mine once called me a wordsmith. I found it fitting and carried it around till today.

See I met this girl a few months ago. Isha*. And today, as I spoke to her I realised that the title fit her better. For she is a true wordsmith. As for me? Well I realised I'm something else. (Well I aspire for it anyway)

I am a Story Teller.

I have no great skills. I have no polished craft. But I have stories. And when it comes to stories, I have seen more than I can remember, and I remember more than I have seen. (G.B.Shaw ladies and gentlemen) I dont even know which stories are mine anymore. But I love telling them. Whether it's through songs or comedy or films or plays or just over lunch, I love telling them. I realise that the great joy for me was not creation and performance. It was the framing and telling of stories that would connect to people. All these stories in my head are a part of me. And if you've heard and felt any of them, they're a part of you too.

Yes. I am a Story Teller. Sounds right, nai?

*Isha Maniar is a talented writer currently studying law. Her blog Chai Paani Etc. fills me with joy and wonder every time I read it.
http://ishamaniar.blogspot.in

Damn tablet wont let me hyperlink. :-/