We all have stories to tell

My mother would handknit a sweater for me every winter when I was a kid. Winters were what I looked forward to also because it would be time to pull out of the cupboard my full pants and wear them- I was always so thrilled and I felt like a grown-up when I wore them. On the last day at school, I was almost in tears, imagining that from the next day I would no more get to meet all my friends- friends who I have been with from my kindergarten, friends who have been friends for nearly my whole life. I would get several boxes of firecrackers, during the festivities, and light them. I kept groping for rhyming words at my first attempt to compose a poem. Time and again, I bossed over my pets as they were the only ones younger to me at home. These are bits and pieces of my story.

And it must be similar to yours. So frequently, do we all not talk about our childhood pride of owning a bicycle, and riding down miles into the woods with friends, for a picnic on the New Year’s Day? And the small pocket money, as a young boy, and a bigger list to spend on? Or our remarkable efforts, much later, at gaining a foothold in life? It is only instinctive for us to be wanting to tell our stories!

I was speaking with one of my newer colleagues the other day who recently came back to India. She was in the US for a couple of years with her husband who had taken up a job there. She was at home with plenty of free time. And she decided to practise painting. With the Michaels Store in the same lane as she lived, she picked up her colours, brushes, charcoal and canvasses, and painted for hours every day. I looked at her blog site and I found she uploaded more than 400 sketches which she created during that time- they are absolutely brilliant ones, and most notably, each one has a story to tell. She must have had a lot to share!

We all do. We write books, publish blogs and make films because we all have stories to tell. The boatmen as they ferry or the minstrels as they wander on the paths of the hamlets sing, telling their tales. It is why Paulo Coelho does what he does. We accumulate our lives’ anecdotes of triumphs and embarrassments, faithfulness and refusal, bitterness and love, to narrate them. Events intervene, and thus, continues our enchanting storytelling.