The Joy of Story Telling

Ever since I became a grandfather, I had to learn the art of story telling to keep my grand children engaged - especially while feeding them or putting them to sleep. I started recalling simple stories from the Panchatantra, Aesop's fables and Mythology. My two grandsons liked them so much that they started enacting some of them with gusto. Often I was also included as an actor in the short skits but always as the villain in the piece. For example, everytime the Gajendra Moksham story was enacted, I had to play the role of the alligator that bites Gajendra -the devout elephant and eventually gets chopped by Vishnu's High-speed Chakrayuda. In doing so, I had to crawl on the floor and effectively feign the pain of getting slit by the revolving chakra while my grandsons applauded the act. No matter what the story was, I had to be the bad guy!

For every story I tell, I had to unfold each character with the suffix of a 'good guy' or bad guy.' For them, the whole world consisted of only two sets of people - the good and the bad ones. How simple!

In the process of telling stories, I had to face some inconvenient questions. When I narrated the Ramayana story, my elder grandson (then about 5) asked me why the cops did not catch Ravana for all his misdeeds and put him in jail. That would have been the end of Ramayana without a battle. With great discomfort, I had to wriggle out by saying there were no cops during those ancient days.

To the child all things are possible - lions and donkeys may talk, a stone may turn into a princess, a monkey may perform the most unimaginable feats like jumping hundreds of miles over the ocean and lifting a huge mountain. The more heroic the acts by anybody, greater is the delight of listening to them. There is no limit to their imagination. Don't you see how glued to the TV sets the kids are while watching Harry Potter or Wal Disney cartoons?

Fortunately, there is a variety of mythological characters in great epic stories like Ramayana and the Mahabharata that can set any child's imagination racing. Believe me, I have to read and update my knowledge of some of the stories before I can narrate them.

The kids love humorous anecdotes. Stories of the witty Tenali Raman and Birbal are very exciting, dramatic and can make the child laugh at the smartness of these court jesters. My grand daughter (6) simple loves to hear jokes and riddles. Everyday, come feed-time, she demands that I tell a story or several jokes before she starts eating. Her vocabulary is expanding so fast that I can't keep pace with her learning.

It is a great joy for me to curl up with my grandchildren listening in awe to every word that I speak. You must watch the amazement, excitement and curiosity filled eyes on every story or joke that I tell. It is real fun! It is also the most enriching experience that builds the intimacy between me and the younger generation.