MANKIND, CHILDHOOD
AND STORY TELLERS
Blessed are
those story- tellers, who, for generations have saved the childhood of mankind.
Once mankind loses its story tellers, it also loses its childhood. In every
country and in every community parents/grandparents tell bed time stories to
their children. These stories have survived for centuries. All of these stories
are moralistic in content. They tell about victory of truth over untruth,
honesty over dishonesty, loyalty over disloyalty, kindness over cruelty. They
tell about courage, adventure, love, faith. Two such story books which come to
mind right now are Hitopadesaar and Panchtantra. Blessed are the kids who have someone to tell
them these bed time stories. Later on in their lives they come face to face
with real life stories.
I guess in
literary field there are many more story tellers than poets or essayists.
Thousands of stories are told in form of short stories, long stories, and novels.
Our own epics like Ramayana, Bhagwat and Mahabharat are also in story format. These
story tellers keep us grounded by presenting to us what exists but our open
eyes do not see. Thousands of stories are scattered around us but only the
observant eye and mind with a very large heart can express them in words.
But for
these story tellers, mankind would be very poor with neither a heart nor a
soul.
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