Life’s Story

Every person, every life has a unique story to tell – which is his or her own life’s story. Two lives even when bonded together will have 2 different stories tho they do converge at some point. Two independent lives will have similarity with each other at some point, but its impossible to find, in this world filled with billions of lives, two equally similar lives and their stories. That’s why each life has its own story to tell even if it doesn’t belong to a millionaire or a scientist. There is a story behind success and a story behind failure, the bold man’s story and the meek man’s, the wise woman’s story and the fool’s, the story of the oppressor and the story of the suppressed. Each story is an outcome of situations, perspectives, innate natures and available options, stimulus and response, and the consequences of the response. From each story emerges victorious, the individual with his warehouse of memories, experience, perspectives, attitudes and goals with the resulting improvisation or deterioration of character, his thoughts, actions and thereby his destiny.

Books are stories in print –biographies, autobiographies, illustrated comics, scientific fiction, novels, classics – the categories are enormous. Stories are not narrated just in books. What is a movie other than a story in motion?? But the movie is defined according to the perceptions and imagination of another person – there is the Count Dracula as when envisaged in the mind of the reader – his form can be moulded according to the infinite dimensions and bounds kept by the imagination of the reader and then there is Christopher Lee , a superb representation, no doubt – but defined and set. Movies are definite entertainers, but they inevitably suffer the disadvantage of crippling a person’s imagination and hence limiting his enjoyment as well. Paintings, poems, dance and music compositions– a majority of the art forms are narrations of emotions, situations – in short, stories. Whereas movies or books or poems are defined narrations – things which are put out in black and white - music for an eg., is an indefinite form of narration .It is a narration to be interpreted by the sensitivity of the listener… I don’t believe any form of art can survive without the basic foundation of a story – people may call it an inspiration.. But isn’t inspiration in itself a story??

The spectators, audience, readers – all get enthralled and touched by novel thoughts and spectacular situations evoked by and narrated in stories. Conan Doyle through Holmes remarks that daily, common life provides the stangest and bizzarest of situations and characters. Life itself is the biggest story narrator and we who live here are often the actors and the audience as well… Ordinary people stoop to low and inhuman actions at times, at times a next door neighbour rises in courage and selflessness…, the hero and the villain and the plot – all live and thrive in this very own routine and daily life.. The only thing required to read of this story is to look beyond and beneath the surface. Friends with whom you hang out, boss with whom you work, beggars whom you cross by on streets are all stories that breathe and live – and mostly, all these stories are equally unknown to us. If one could explore the rich treasures of these stories and possess the ability to learn from them, then one would grow infinitely rich in ones outlook, wisdom and evolve into a finer self.

As my train waits at the railway crossing, I see a bare footed man ,old and weather beaten, close to an isolated green patch of land, by the side of the railway tracks. He stares at the train and brushes his teeth away slowly, perched on a small stone slab as I, hidden by the thick slab of glass , observe him without any reserve. Here I am , late to get to work – with plans and hopes and fears. And there sits this solitary old figure. What does he do for a living; does he have a family; what all hopes does this person harbour within him, to which he clutches as a cliff overthrown man holds on to the last blade of grass? In the same 24 hours that we both are given in a day, what does he think, do, see, speak different from what I think, do, see and speak?? There will be a difference for sure and it is that difference that marks his story different and unique from mine.., likewise from a billion other lives.

Life , I take thee as my teacher and hold thee in my heart..
Prick me, pain me, heal me, liberate me – but teach me of the stories in thy wares.