The train of stories

What is so unusual in stories that we leave everything aside for a moment and lend our ears?

October 06, 2019 12:11 am | Updated 12:11 am IST

Stories are an essential part of human existence. Starting from the Genesis to various yarns about the future of the planet, mankind has an immeasurable treasure of stories. But why are we so fascinated by stories? What makes us leave everything aside for a moment and listen to a story? What is so captivating that a child couldn’t fall asleep without listening to its grandmother’s story? It is true that all stories have dramas that connect with our emotions. But though we are already surrounded by so many dramas and problems in real life, we want to associate ourselves with more problems in the form of storytelling. Why?Life can be often unfair. Nothing goes according to our wishes. There are several things that do not make any sense. We don’t get answers to many questions life raises in front of us. As a result, our mind tends to find a virtual world where we resolve real-life issues and make it sensible according to our will. Our minds always desire to reframe uncertain issues to get a feeling of contentment. That is how stories come to existence. If we go back to the genesis of storytelling, we can trace it to prehistoric caves. Early man used to carve their stories into stones. From stone carvings to scriptures and then to words, the art of storytelling has evolved. Though stories take different forms, their primary objective of influencing and motivating human minds remains the same. Whenever we hear a story, our mind looks from the character’s point of view and everything makes sense even if the character is an antagonist. In the case of mythology, we find inner truth in the characters and dramas, even after knowing that it is just a myth. That is why the most beautiful stories we have heard were those which seemed impossible in real world. As the art of storytelling prospered, people began to express their stories in the form of paintings, poems and plays. But cinema has been the most influential form of storytelling in modern times. Through the two basic human sense of vision and sound, the story becomes a live experience for the viewers. When we watch a film in a theatre, we become so involved in the characters and conflict that we tend to break the wall of reality and enter the film. The modern-day movie theatre is like a gym for exercising our emotions. We laugh, cry and empathise with the characters. Once we connect ourselves with the emotion of a specific character of a movie, the character tends to come out of the screen and settle within us, which further motivates us to act like it in real-time. The characters give us the courage to deal with a situation in a different way because he or she has done it in a similar way on the screen. In other words, cinema compensates the half-baked aspects of our life. The most important thing which connects our life with another is empathy. In real life also, if we see an accident or someone involved in a quarrel, we freeze for a moment and gaze at it continuously. And that urge of emotional equation comes from the gut level as we find the relevance of our inner self in the other person’s life.In stories and life, there is one prevailing facet which makes both worthy of listening and that is conflict. If everything is all right, no one is keen on listening to your story. A person’s vulnerability creates empathy, which connects his journey to struggle with ourselves. Even if we don’t become the person, it is the profound feeling which compels us to come out of ourselves and become the other person. This is the reason the art of storytelling will continue to find relevance in our lives. 95barmananurag@gmail.com

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