Once upon a time.....

This is by far the most clichéd beginning to a story. Just like "There once was a king..", "Long long ago.."

 

But it's interesting to note that "You know what?", "What happened was..", "I woke up in a hospital bed", "On the first day of ĀshāDa" - beginnings such as these have found their way into public memory.

Everyone and everything has a story to tell. Long/short, comic/tragic, monotonous/pulsating, bland/eventful - it really doesn't matter, as long as the reader forms a bond with the words.

Grandparents' bedtime stories or those stories from friends which inadvertently creep into a combined study session or the stories from the beloved over latenight phone calls or texts; stories which enlighten or entertain us or the ones which push us towards slumber; stories of travels, or the twists and plots within a book; or the ones enacted with liveliness on stage or the ones narrated with a crisp screenplay on silver screen or those that blend themselves into the notes of melodies to transform into an audiovisual spectacle of a ballad - each of these barges into the creative consience of the audience and rules their imaginary multiverse, sometimes for eternity.

A well written book, a crisply narrated video, a meticulously scripted film/play, an artistically articulated mime show, sometimes even a manic monologue - all of these potentially have tales woven into them. A simple knot of a shoelace or as interwoven as scripts of Christopher Nolan's films; assuring as the harness of a bungee jumping rope or annoying as the entangled wires of earphones - there's variety aplenty.

A linear fairytale brimming of optimism like Cinderalla or a long drawn tragedy like Hamlet, a layered anthology of kings and kingdoms like Kathasirithasagara, the One Thousand and One Nights (aka Arabian Nights) with the accompanying narrative of Scheherazade - each one has an intrigue of its own.

All in all, stories define us, by mirroring who we are, by presenting a periscope to the society around us, by turning into a telescope to explore a distant world. They are capable of teleporting us across space, time and perspectives. Stories transcend every certainty and lead us to a realm of unknown.

Stories aren't just liesure. They're experiences, learnings, warnings which add to our education. They're our collective heritage, to be pondered, discussed, cherished and treasured upon.

Stories are a tradition to be passed on, to be reinvented and retold, across generations and epochs.

Not all of them need the air of finality. The creators' subtlety allows us to understand, and form our own conclusions. To resonate better with this, we have writings of Tagore, Ruskin Bond, and Saki; or a film like ಉಳಿದವರು ಕಂಡಂತೆ (Ulidavaru Kandante) [As seen by the rest].

For the rest, there's always "They lived happily ever after".