The wicked lady turning blind due to her greed, the mountain ghost taking a stroll through the village path during the fall, the talking fox who loves homemade sweets… these are mere stories to anyone… some of them, our grandparents iterated over generations… some of them, mankind called the legends… but to a ten year old anxious mind these are the ladders to the skies of imagination to find the attic of wisdom…
And I was fed with plenty of them, thanks to a certain person with her fluffy white hairs and freckled, folded skin. My childhood was filled with such stories and I believe that was one reason I love stories more than truths, I choose fiction over facts, and I adorn imagination over reality.
When you close your eyes, on that brown black canvas there are many layers forming one after other, many lines drawn carelessly, waves scattered around, and these patterns appear and disappear. You can’t hold them as they slip away; they are meant to be that way, just a tease. They are memories of past, snippets of present, hopes of future… They are stories you want but don’t know how to tell. You kept on trying to catch these patterns oblivious to the galloping time, the changing seasons. At long last, on a fine day, you caught one and opened your eyes in joy to share your story to the world, and found yourself lazily sitting on a chair in the veranda. With the faded senses you searched around to see your grandchild romping. Your shivering wrinkled hands beckoned the child, who came and sat on your lap with the most beautiful smile adorning her lips. Placing your dry lips on her forehead, eyes filled with love and heart brimming with prayers, you started telling your stories… one after other… day and night you told her stories… the ghost of all those patterns, those carelessly drawn lines and scattered waves took bodies; and you wove a ladder for her out of them, that takes her to the skies of imagination to find the attic of wisdom.
verbiage 