Stories and Dreams

“Once there was a king…”

And so begins another of those melodious stories — somewhere in the trembling old voice of a grandmother, somewhere in the rhythmic softness of a loving mother.

At this very moment too, somewhere a little child must be waiting for another story to be told and retold. For what else has fascinated mankind more than stories and the dreams hidden inside them?

Is that not why whenever we meet someone, we ask:

“So what else?”
“What is new?”
“What’s the news?”

We are always waiting to hear another story.

School refines us, colleges discipline us, life sharpens us in a thousand ways, yet there is one thing in us that never completely dies — the longing to listen, to imagine, to wander into another world for a little while.

Strange indeed is the power of stories.

The memory of trigonometry and geography slowly fades somewhere in the mind, yet the image of Krishna driving the chariot remains alive with astonishing clarity. Duryodhana feels as real to us as Akbar. And perhaps whether every story truly happened or not is not even the most important thing.

What difference does it make ultimately?

What matters is not merely evidence, but the purity of the story itself — the feeling it carries through generations.

History gets created by gods while stories are created by man, and perhaps together they complete human life.

Hanuman takes history to another height altogether when he leaps into the sky mistaking the sun for a fruit. Little Krishna brings tears of affection into our eyes when he is caught red-handed with stolen butter in his tiny hands and innocent fear in his eyes.

The other evening, while watching children listening to stories of kings and flying horses, I suddenly realized how much of our innocence disappears as we grow older.

My own mind now laughs too quickly at fairy tales. It keeps reminding me that there are no flying horses waiting for this Prince anywhere outside.

But look at these pure little hearts.

This child, sitting safely in the lap of loving elders, looking out through the window into the still dark starry night, is already travelling into those dreamlands of princes and princesses, fairies and demons.

“I am that Prince.” 

“I will save the Princess.”

And for those moments, he truly becomes that Prince.

He is already riding upon the back of the flying horse while I feel like the Prince who long ago descended from the horse only to discover the harsh heat and dust of ordinary urban life.

There are no kingdoms here.

The Prince gets trapped in petty trivialities, ambitions, compromises, and the demonic insecurities of life.

And the Princess too changes slowly with time.

She no longer arrives with magical beauty or flowing tresses. She walks quietly through the crowds like any nameless flower, like a lonely star trying to hide itself somewhere behind the moon and the noise of countless other stars.

Somewhere along the way both the Prince and the Princess forget that they were once part of a story.

Meanwhile the little one still rests his chin upon his hands and continues looking outside at the stars while the tale flows on amidst the shrill sounds of crickets and the occasional cough of the grandmother.

And somewhere inside himself he is still whispering softly:

“I will be that Prince…”

I look at those shining eyes and suddenly feel filled with a strange mixture of love, joy, and sadness — joy that such innocence still survives somewhere in the world, and sadness because we too once believed so completely in flying horses, impossible kingdoms, and stories that could rescue us from the ordinary weight of life.