Story time — COVID19 Lock-down Day 58

2020, When wheel stopped (or slowed down)

Note: This is part of a series of articles I’ve been writing while India is under nationwide lock-down to fight with COVID19 virus. Some are in a form of diary just recording events, some are in form of general thoughts. Today is Day 57.

Week 1 [Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7]
Week 2 [Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14]
Week 3 [Day 15, Day 16, Day 17, Day 18, Day 19, Day 20, Day 21]
Week 4 [Day 22, Day 23, Day 24, Day 25, Day 26, Day 27, Day 28]
Week 5 [Day 29, Day 30, Day 31, Day 32, Day 33, Day 34, Day 35]
Week 6 [Day 36, Day 37, Day 38, Day 39, Day 40, Day 41, Day 42]
Week 7 [Day 43, Day 44, Day 45, Day 46, Day 47, Day 48, Day 49]
Week 8 [Day 50, Day 51, Day 52, Day 53, Day 54, Day 55, Day 56]
Week 9 [Day 57]

Story time

Almost every night, it would be time to sleep after fully tired day from work, traffic, weather and so on. Then a voice would ask innocently “Story”. I ignore it from desire to sleep until the voice becomes a thunder “STORRRRYYY”.

Suddenly, my brain would start to connect dots to come up with an amazing story for that voice, my kid. Many times I instantly cook up a story, but until a perfect story is not narrated, the order recurs.

I’m sure almost every parent has similar story. But fundamentally what kind of story we shall be narrating our kids and why is it important for a story to be told?

What story?

The fundamental aspect for kid (or any human being) to like to story is they should find a connection. Without making a proper connection to at least one or two characters of story, the story would fall flat. For this reason, there is no story liked unanimously.

In my book reading experience, every story has multiple faces. One face narrates story with characters, other face narrates history (or society) through story. Complex novels and books may have more than two faces.

Take Ramayana for example, the big story is about Rama’s war with Ravana over Ravana’s abduction of Sita. But, there are so many other threads about Lakshmana, Hanuman, Sugreeva, Dasaratha and so on. You can tell the same story in 3 sentences or 30k sentences. Let us see what is other face of Ramayana, it is about Dharma, it is about society, it is about self respect, it is about family.

But, if you narrate Ramayana to a non-believer, the first question would be how can a monkey become friend to man and go for war. There are more stupid theories you can hear.

So, as long as connection exists, the story never fails.

I will re-explain with other example, the famous “Ant and Grasshopper” story, where Ant works hard while Grasshopper enjoys life. When winter comes, Ant lives but Grasshopper faces challenges.

Let us now go in details, the key part of story is about hard work and saving for future. The story revolves around the crucial season “winter”. The story falls flat if there is no “snowy winter”. For instance, you are telling this story and your kid suddenly asks “We never had snow”.

Remember, every story captures reflections of society inherently and puts a story on front. When you are telling a story written for audience of different culture, remember you are creating confusion for your child.

We can take any number of books as examples, but fundamentally if you do not have a connection, do not narrate it to your kid. They will learn when they have enough intelligence of their own.

Why Stories

This is a silly question, right? No, in fact there is no question as “silly question”. In fact asking question is vital sign of development. But one who asks question should also have patience to learn answer.

As I told already, every story has multiple faces. Remember the character you connected with, it motivates you in one or other way and decides your future activities. Remember, this motivation and connection can be in any form, it could be warrior-ship, sadness, happiness, joy and so on.

Stories are important stepping stones in creating perceptions and seed ability to think in different angles.

A small snippet of thought on this line, in 2017 the movie Bahubali The conclusion is making dream run at box office. I took my then alive father to movie thinking he would enjoy the epic war scenes. After watching the movie, his comment was “There is so much tragedy in this movie. Too much to handle for me”. When I watched again the movie a week back, I got similar feel. Perceptions do change with time.

Now, since all movies have some story, Can we argue that, seeing movies is good enough as reading story? I would say “NO” because, story reading activates creative thoughts in brain. Seeing movies is you are just watching someone else’s reflection of a story. The problem with movies is, they can’t capture the depth of character in limited span of time. Only stories can do justice to every character, for there is no restriction on length.

I’m sure everyone of us has at least one story that connected to them for life long. For me, my life long connection is with Ramayana and character of Sri Rama.

Some of my other favorite stories

• Ramayana
• Maha Bharatam
• Tripurasura vadha
• Parvati and Shiva
• Panchatantram, I believe this is an universal story for almost every kid across globe. The beauty is it’s society is filled with animals. Unlike humans, society of animals is not with too many layers
• Stories of prodigies Prahlada, Dhruva, Suka Maharishi
• Stories of sages Harischandra, Vishwamitra, Bhagiradha
• Stories of kings Yayati, Nala
• Tolstoy short stories
• Auto biography of Mahatma Gandhi
• Life of Madam Curie
• and so on…..

Keep reading to stay motivated in these difficult times of Cyclones, COVID19 attacks and tsunami of unemployment about to unleash.

Stay safe….
Stay vigilant…
Keep reading…

Note: Inspired from discussion with my cousin Deepika.