Story telling….a 4 decade journey

Story telling for me began more than 40 years ago….I was a small boy, growing up in Khartoum, who had created an imaginary city – “Sint” – that was submerged in water and long lost. Sounds like Atlantis ? Maybe, but I was 5 yrs old and had never heard the story of Atlantis. This was not the typical young boy’s imagination….it was a story I carried for many many months….describing in great detail the city and life in it. The descriptions were vivid, surreal…..so real that friends of my parents felt I was reliving a past life. Friends, family and drs were consulted….I seemed fine in every other way, ….. fortunately my parents ignored the speculation of others and continued to encourage my imagination. Perhaps it is that wild and vivid imagination that now forms the foundation of my stories of dinosaurs, dragons and tigers who can play cricket and hit sixes !

For many years after the ‘death’ of Sint, story telling was forgotten….it only reared its head again when I was in an expressive mood in office, and had a receptive audience, read, young impressionable minds ! As Mihir grew up, and his imagination rekindled the child in me, I took to story telling again….for children, these were funny, wild, whacky, crazy stories but which sound so silly when I listen to them myself, …  and for friends, i wrote prose, words of pain and anguish, wrote about my emotions, about what i saw around me ….

Story telling has given me a chance to live outside of my workplace, to feel young, and free again. To those who have been subjected to this story telling, to those who have inspired me to tell these stories, and to those who encourage me with their words of praise, I dedicate my words on this Childen’s day.