Sometimes profound words come from the mouth of babies! Yesterday I was whiling away my time watching an award show for movies (trying to have a chilled out weekend). The young actress who won the award said a few words that made me think. I cannot reproduce her exact speech but the gist was “I am a good actress not only because I work hard at my art but because I have a team of directors, producers and writers who frame my character in the movie” she ended by saying, “I give the highest honour to the writer, as it is he who is the creator of everything. Everyone else does whatever they do  to give life to his creation, but it is his thought and imagination which is the seed of a brave new world”.

All forms of art indulge in the process of creation. Whether it is cinema, painting, sculptor or any media form, they all strive to put before us a reality that may or may not mimic the world as we know it. While most of them have their limitations: Cinema by its budget and practicality; painting by the physical use of canvas or paints; sculptor with the medium it uses, but writing, it lets your imagination take wings and soar into the wild unknown, beyond the plausibility of facts and data; sometimes even beyond the edge of the world.

I think God himself is a writer, he takes the trouble to chart out a plot for each of us and then lets us bumble our way through life. Sometimes he erases all that he had written and rewrites our progress!

Of course writing per se was preceded by the oral tradition of storytelling, so what I am actually trying to say is, more than writing, it is giving birth to a story with its myriad colours of thought and action is the point of relevance. Some writers painstakingly go through the correct procedure of creation. First the plot is imagined-the foundation is laid; then the main character is conceived-preferably a round character with its strengths and weaknesses, after which the narrative goes from introduction to weaving words and creating a new world and the final denouement which will unveil a new chronicle of events. There is also another set of writers who just sit down and decide to unleash their creativity in words, on the spur of the moment. They write a story and then go into the nitty gritty of polishing and sharpening their offerings. You could belong to either group but what is important here is that both group use their skill and art to form an immortal saga which will touch many, if not all hearts that have the perused it.

Why are stories so important to us? The modern world which is steeped in scientific theory has the audacity to lay down a data grid and expect us to understand every nuance of existence via this. Obviously, this fails time and again! This is when we go back to the art of storytelling to explain the shades that exist. Two plus two is four is the universal truth as long as the parameters are physical objects. What happens when there is a fluid expression of dissent to the universal truth? Can your data grid succeed in explaining the anomalies that is always a part of life? Here is when tales, fables and stories come into the fray. They are those fluid expressions which adapt and encompass all our existential woes in such a way that they are the universal truth without vindication and validation.

How easy it is to teach a child through a story rather than putting facts and figures on a platter before him. Every talk show, everything connected with education and every form of entertainment refers to some story or the other. In order to understand or empathise a situation, we need to identify and relive the circumstances. Stories play a stellar role in infusing healthy mental growth and development within and without the confines of society.

As an erstwhile teacher I have always resorted to the unlimited bag of stories to teach, motivate and create s group of individuals who are independent, unique and outstanding in their own rights.

Does this answer the question of why ‘stories’ and connected to  it ‘writing’ is important to this world? Does this give the responsibility of moulding and building a character out of nothing a greater stress? Does this also fill each and every writer with questions of their ability to turn around someone’s life from nothing to a path filled with excitement and happiness?