Stories (Part 1)

I have been told often that I am a good storyteller, one of my avid listeners are my nieces and nephew. Even when I retell a story that I see in movies, my immediate family members often point out that my storytelling skills are really good that it makes them imagine. Now that is a huge compliment. Well recently we saw a movie and they spoke about the Japanese Concept 'Ikigai' (pronounced ee-key-guy), basically, its made up of two words 'Iki' means life and 'kai' meaning result or effect. So it's your reason for life or shall I say the purpose of life.

Well I always knew that I wanted to be an artist, even while I was in school. There was never a confusion there. I chose my path from there based on my passion and I had no 'back up plan'. To this day I can safely say that I still love what I do and I have found my Ikigai. But not always people are sure about their path and they often stumble upon a soul searching journey which guides them deeper inside than outside. I think that life follows that path. When we are young, we want to find out more about the world and its endless possibilities and as we grow we realize that we don't know ourselves enough and somewhere down the line the journey becomes inward within ourselves then outward around us.

I do believe that stories are powerful and change us from within if we allow that to happen. There are two such stories that have played an impact on me, here I don't want to talk about religious stories since yes they have impacted me deeply but I can't just categories them as stories, they hold a very deep meaning to my being. So I am talking about stories which either have happened to me or I have heard from someplace. For the sake of storytelling I intend to tell this in a third-person point of view:

1. This is the story of a young girl all of 12, shy, low on self-confidence and non-confortational. This girl did not like being the center of attention. So it did not come as a surprise to anyone that she hated that her school was taking part in an interschool state festival, this was a huge event for the school since there were 10 other schools participating and if it won, then it would be a prestigious position to be in. But it was compulsory for her class to perform and mandatory that everyone be present. Heading the event in their school was a robust P.T teacher, who when he gave instruction, everyone followed.

What happened then was vigorous training for the next month. It was a hot summer and standing in the sun, the young girl wondered when this would be over. At first, she despised going to the field for practice since her act involved her standing over two boys and doing gymnastics of sorts. But slowly and steadily she looked forward to the practice. She found out that she is agile and can easily perform. Day after day rolled by, she was ready for the event now and told her family about it too. They were not allowed to come at the final day event since the show would be aired on television and the tickets were limited to participating school students. 

A week before the event, all the dress for the event was distributed. She stood in the line to get her dress as well along with four others. But as they approached they she saw that her P.T teacher had an empty bag and a sorry expression. He informed that the dressmaker had mixed up their order and would have the dress ready for the remaining four on the day of the event. He asked the girl and the others to show up half an hour early for changing the dress.

On the day of the event, the girl got up with butterflies in her stomach, she wanted to perform well and in front of a huge audience. There was this slight tug of worry in her heart that her dress was not ready yet and even if she got it early in the morning. She had to change quickly into it at school, she couldn't be late. So she stood in line with the other four people who were also waiting for their dress. From where she was standing, she could see the P.T teacher holding a form and crossing out names as he distributed the other dress. When her turn came, she saw a slight worry on the sir's face, his expression quickly changed and he said that he would give her dress at the place of the event which was a stadium. This scared the young girl, she was the only one out of 400 students to be in school uniform and what if she doesn't find a place to change in the stadium.

When they reached the stadium, she went up to her sir to enquire about her dress. It was getting late and she wouldn't have time to change. She saw that he avoided talking to her for some time but she managed to ask him, he replied saying that she should feel lucky that they brought her this far to see the show, that she couldn't participate because she doesn't have the dress and he didn't have time to explain more. She was asked to sit alone in the participation wing and view everyone else perform.

After the event, her sir did not come over to explain or enquire how she felt. She heard her friends talking about the event and their performance and they inquired why she did not come? was she not well? She murmured something and silent tears rolled down her face when she looked away. When her mother asked how the show went and when will it be aired, she couldn't stop her tears, even though she was afraid that it might lead to confrontation with the sir and her parents which it eventually did. But this impacted her, she had always felt till that time that people did what they said. So when sir said that he would give her dress she believed it and did not question it further. It did not cross her mind that this could happen. 

What was more hurtful, the disappointment of not participating after practicing relentlessly for over a month or the fact that someone can be so disregardful of others' emotions and not even bother to apologize for their mistake? The first rattled her and the second shattered her.

 

Now there is a second story to this post and also my observations for that, but I would be sharing it in

the next post since this one has become pretty long.