When storytelling can heal you from the inside

For a middle-aged man, he looks very young. Not a trace of his 35 years is visible on this storyteller’s face. As a person, he is just an ordinary guy, someone who inconspicuously merges into the crowd, unmindful of his own talent. It is only when he takes the stage and works his way around words that you know what lies beneath the suave, polite to a fault Salil Mukhia Koitsu — a shamanic story teller who spins tales to heal the world.

As the 35-year-old sat down to enthral the audience at Udaipur Tales: an international storytelling festival that concluded on Sunday, it was abundantly clear that we wouldn’t be the same person by the time his session ends. Washing over us like a shower of positive energy, Mukhia, in his immensely soft-spoken style, did what he’s best at: merging us with our higher self.

“For me, storytelling is not just about narrating tales for the sake of amusement or entertainment, they are a form of medicine. I call them medicinal stories. It is an ancient form in which stories have been explored as healing tools: to heal the sub-conscious and the conscious and also as a means of spiritual development,” says Mukhia, whose rituals of reciting stories include partaking beer and long hours of meditation.

“This is shamanic tradition. We start with sipping on milk beer. By the time a shaman is ready to go home, he is drunk,” he laughs.

Equally unusual is the storytelling session too. Mukhia, who got initiated into shamanism at the very young age of five, uses sound and acoustic energy to interact with his audience, telling the story of a monk that he heard from his grandfather. So, apart from peppering the story with jokes and humour, the technique also involves chanting, whistling; in short, channelling energy in the right direction.

“We summon good energy and our guardian angels to protect us and watch over us. While we may refuse to accept it in our logical and reasoning mind, the truth is that everything is energy. It is energy that heals and destroys,” says the founder of the Acoustic Traditional and the Festival of Indigenous Storytellers, an organisation that promotes story telling and tribal folklore, something which Mukhia feels is dying rapidly.

Mukhia, who belongs to the Kiranti indigenous community of the Eastern Himalayas, further shares how shamans are traditionally forbidden to write down stories. “Shamans are sacred storytellers and they have vast numbers of tales buried in them on tribes, gods, nature etc. But there is no written account and only shamans have the gift to narrate them,” he informs, adding that following the lifestyle of a shaman is no mean feat.

“It is not easy, as from a very young age, we face societal pressure and conflicts. For example, as a tradition, I kept my hair long, but when I started school, I was forced to cut it,” he recounts.

He, however, doesn’t seem to regret the path he is treading for the past three decades.

“Shamans are healers, and spiritual masters. The world needs someone who can cleanse it of its bad energy and soothe the pain,” he smiles.