Spin a yarn, ignite minds, and drive human progress

I was driving out of Lucknow on a long road zigzagging through a bare region. Unexpectedly, an absolute patriarch of a tree came into view, spreading a vast leafy tent around a gnarled trunk. Under it stood four stone pillars supporting a cracked roof. The rectangular bump below was surely the final resting place for someone long gone. A weather-beaten well added to the picturesqueness. I stopped and went up close to feel the loneliness.

As I was about to step into the forgotten mausoleum, a gruff voice hollered, “Beti, cover your head!”

I looked up to see a scraggy old man emerging from the deep folds of the tree trunk, trailing a switch of peacock feathers, looking eerie enough to have come out of the coffin itself. Quickly covering my head with the dupatta, I bowed in respectful silence and enquired about the mazar and its skeletal occupant. The Old Testament prophet heaved a sigh and sat down on the rickety step. I sank down beside him, eager to hear his tale.

The man said, “Here lies a man who got recognised as a saint when he performed this great miracle. Long ago a lovely young girl who lived in the village yonder was compelled by her father to marry a well-to-do widower. The night before the wedding she came to pray in this mazar and jumped into the well. However, instead of hitting the water, she found herself standing in mid air. Before her was an old man who asked her why she was killing herself. The girl confessed that it was because her dreams of finding a hero like Majnu had been shattered. The chosen groom was an oaf. The old man snapped his fingers. Hey presto, the bridegroom appeared in a burst of light only to declare, “I don’t want an unwilling bride. All I want is a happy life with a companion I can love and cherish, with whom I can share not only my wealth, but my whole heart.” The girl was moved. She went back, hand-in-hand with her new-found love. Six months later the husband died. But the girl, now not only lovely but also wealthy, refused to marry again, saying, “I had six months in paradise with my Majnu, more than enough for a lifetime.”

So charmed was I by this romance that I gave the man a generous sum. As we drove away, the taxi driver said dryly, “Madam, last month I stopped here with a bank manager. The old scoundrel got a great tip by telling the banker about a greedy moneylender who had twinges of guilt. As the sinner stood at the brink of the well wondering if jumping in would bring release or land him in hell, he lost his balance and tumbled in. The saint stopped him in mid air and told him to redeem himself by aiding the sick. That is how the village got a hospital and a saint at one go!”

Even as I laughed, I remembered a similar account in a Tamil short story. The writer sees a dilapidated bungalow on a deserted lane, hidden by grim trees behind locked gates. The panwallah in the corner kiosk explains why no one wants to rent it: “Finding his daughter stabbed to death by his second wife, the houseowner stabbed the killer, buried both corpses in the garden and died of grief. At midnight the murdered girl’s shrieks are echoed by the other two.

A few weeks later, the writer visits his friend in the neighbourhood who narrates a variation of the story. Overhearing her stepmother complaining about her to the father, the daughter grabs a kitchen knife and stabs herself. The couple bury her in the backyard. Lightning strikes them dead. Since then the daughter’s ghost has been chasing them around the bungalow every single night. Learning that the same panwallah was the source of this twist in the tale, the writer rushes to the kiosk and demands the truth. The panwallah unfolds the “real” story of how the jealous daughter stabbed her stepmother, and then stabbed herself. The stunned father buried both corpses in the backyard and hung himself from the rafters. Since that day, all three ghosts have been wailing through the night in the ruined bungalow.

Think of the endless tips acquired and innumerable pans bought during these multiple sessions of shifting narratives!

But even when storytelling becomes a marketing strategy, doesn’t it remain an act of creation? This irrepressible inventiveness of their minds enables human beings to adapt to change — and grasp that change, dream — and make the dream come true, grapple with illusion — and nail the truth. And so, can we admit that more than scientists and philosophers, the storytellers of the world direct human evolution? Drive human progress?

Author is a playwright