Perhaps, even before we were toddlers...till date.
(And if you read this some years hence, it will mean the same.)
When a lullaby didn't seem to work, we had Grandma tales and Aesop fables ruling most of our younger days.
They started the same: each time.
We never complained.
Sometimes, we enjoyed them so much that even the fact that we just heard it all through the previous night didn't create a stir. Well, probably we got so embedded into the words that we over-looked monotony. Or probably, for some of us, the words spelled 'haven'.
'Once upon a time....'
the saga continued.
Humour, thrill, mystery, adventure, romance, fantasy.
Everything followed well.
Often at my place, over late night nostalgic chats, my aunt reminds me of how eager I was as a 4 or 5 year old kid, to be the bed-time story teller.
And then I would start: 'Once upon a time, there was a boy....'
And I would virtually stop speaking.
I would get lost into my imagination ( I assume) and be brought back to reality.
'Continue!'
Gathering back the lost link, I would mutter, 'Once upon a time, there was a boy....'
And then lose track again.
'Oh yeah! We get it that there was a boy. What next?'
And then there would be similar fantasy-routes that I would trod on.
Sounds insane, I know.
But when I trace back, I guess, they put me on an imaginating spree.
'Once upon a time...'
And I had the whole world to explore.....
I had the power to fit in anything and everything I desired.
Oh no! I don't know anything about the boy!!!
A recent college festival had a story-telling event and a friend asked me to sign up for it. Instantly, the kid story-teller within me came alive and I politely turned down the offer.
I am sure, all of you'll have distinct memories following 'Once upon a time...'
When asked to pen down a few words describing short stories (in general), a colleague says:
No flowery language, no unnecessary details, no going around the point, no confusion.
We are going down to the bare basics of Story-writing. The quintessential intriguing story-line,
wild characters and a climax to a tale that leaves people convinced that the four most hard-hitting words in the
English dictionary are certainly, "Once upon a time..."
What say???
2 comments:
hmmm... oh dear, for the long-winded me, it would be so hard to follow your colleague's criterias...
not that I don't like to get to the point, but when (in a story) you get to the end too fast, you lose the magic, isn't it? what captivation is there then?
Well, that's what it takes to write a short story!
Few words but captivation intact! Not everyone's piece of cake (including me), I agree!
Post a Comment