Story telling

Sunlo sunlo ee kahaani, isme na raja hey ya raani, mai aaj sunaana aaya hu, mai aaj sunana aaya hu....

Taarappa taarappa taarappa taarara.....

Once upon a time, the frogs decided to race. Arey, nobody looks at us. Everybody is interested in the tiger, lion, elephant. So we will have a unique race. And this race was to climb up a fort, right to the top. All the animals came to cheer the frogs. WHOOO they went. And the frogs went racing. They went scampering up the fort. Of course, it was slippery. Thadhap, chup, prrrr... they kept falling off and only a few frogs continued. Now the audience who were cheering slowly realized oh oh, this is not the correct thing to do and started saying- hey!!! Come back, come back. Get down. You are going to hurt yourself. The few who were going up, yeah better to come back, slowly they started sliding down. But one fellow he kept going. Everyone got very worried. Come back, you will die. You will fall. Frogs are not meant to climb. That's so dangerous. But he went climbing, climbing and he reached the top. He won the race. Everybody clapped. They couldn't help clapping. And the vulture who was the empire sitting on top said-" Gentleman- I have a question for you- when everybody was telling not to climb, how did you still have the courage to do it? And this winner frog said- kya? He was a deaf frog.

Well, these were the stories that I listened to in my childhood. Panchatantra stories, Tales of Akbar-Birbal, Short stories of Ramayana and Maha Bharatha, feeble shared by my grandparents and parents during bedtime. I traveled on the wings of words, traveled to new lands, new places, laughed, cried, surprised, scared, excited and then slipped into a deep sleep. This is the power of storytelling.

Stories can connect, relate, inspire, influence and bring a change in our lives. I have a dream- Martin Luther King story. Steve Jobs story says-My dream is to make a dent in the universe. These are the stories that shaped the world, society and people. 

There are 6 elements of storytelling. Character, plot, setting, point of view, style and theme. The frog story has it all.

Storytelling is a beautiful way of creatively visualizing and exploring ideas. We also become very open to receiving ideas and be very relaxed in listening to a story. YES!!! Somebody says-"Patha hey kya hua"? You are waiting. There is relaxed openness to it. This is what makes storytelling so powerful. The other thing that makes it powerful is the story itself. Human beings love to make stories. Love to share stories. Love to tell stories. Mamma, aaj mai school ko nahi japaunga, bukaar aagaya mujhe- a kid excuse story. All of us of all ages and all times make stories. Think about it. The cave people wrote the stories or painted the stories of their exploits on the cave walls as cave paintings. And today what do we do. We click selfies and put them on Facebook wall. We are still living with stories. Still wanting to share stories. Because as creatures we are programmed for storytelling. Stories create credibility.

Stories also can sell ideas. The other day I was watching TV and I saw an ad for bottled water. Okay? Manikchand oxyrich. Because when I think of clean, pure drinking water, I think of Manikchand. Its called Manikchand Oxyrich. And the tag line is- now with more oxygen. Here is the scientific joke for you guys. Okay? The chemical composition of water is H2O. 2 atoms of hydrogen and 1 atom of Oxygen. More oxygen makes it H2O2, which is hydrogen peroxide that will kill you. There is another ad that I overheard on the radio. A-1 mosquito repellent, now with mosquito-go-away technology. Mosquito-go-away technology? We have ads for face wash. The face wash is anti darkening; anti pimple; anti-wrinkle; anti twinkle; anti-this; anti-sweat. New Garnier face wash is anti-pollution. What? We are killing it in science and technology. There was an ad a couple of years ago for rat poison. I don't know if you guys saw that. And the tagline for that was – " Chuhe khaye ghar ke andhar, marey bahar jaa kar".You guys remember that right? Tell me one thing. Are rats that obedient? And this one rat comes home, he's eating it. Suddenly he starts gagging. Another rat is like, " Hey Prakash! What are you doing? Go outside and die. Haven't you seen the ad? Get out. Stories can sell ideas.

We invest emotions in the story. Let me tell you a short story. The king died and the queen died. That's the story. Let me change the story a little bit. The king died and the queen died of grief. Now you started thinking- the queen died of grief. How she might have felt, how long were they married for? What happened? You know nothing about these characters, but you started getting emotionally invested in the story. 

All of you reading this story has your personal stories as well. My storytelling journey story started with fear. Fear of public speaking, fear of stage. I still remember the day when I walked onto the stage to share my story in front of the audience first time in my life. Zero confidence, eyes on the ground, loss of words, butterflies in the tummy, sweat hands and finally ended up delivering a fumble story. 

What is in it for me that I learned through my storytelling journey?

1) Establishing credibility

2) Emotional connection with people

3) Selling your idea.

In the words of Dalai Lama-"The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds".

What is your story?