Posted on by Sonia Dogra

We are all Storytellers

Dear Reader,

Have you ever thought of yourself as a storyteller? If you haven’t, consider it now. We are storytellers—on a daily basis, we engage in storytelling, constructing narratives about ourselves, our entitlements, our sense of belonging, our relationships, and the forces that hold us back or propel us. These stories gradually begin to shape our reality. There are fewer things or people in this world who affect us as profoundly as we do ourselves. We are the ones who hold the key to both self-limitation and self-liberation.

Recently, I finished reading a fine collection of short stories titled The Tombstone in my Garden by Temsula Aao. It is a slender book containing just five short stories, and although I doubt I will ever forget any tale within this collection, The Talking Tree has latched onto me tightly since I finished reading it. While the bigger premise of this story is nature’s constant struggle against man’s brutality and a grandfather tree that becomes the saviour of an entire village, for me it turned out essentially to be the story of a tiny sapling shooting up from the crevice of a huge tree and becoming a metaphor for resilience and courage.

The Talking Tree, as I read it, became a reflection of my life, of how I started out. For that matter, of how we all start out. Whether we are able to hold on to these narratives decides where we land. I’d like to run a passage from the story that instantly became a favourite.

He tried to crawl out of the confinement of the crevice, but found that it was not going to be an easy task because some of the loose earth had entered its hiding place and settled on its puny branches. He tried moving first one branch on his right and saw that it was firmly wedged in the trunk by now. He tried the left one next; it was the same with that too. He wriggled his head and found that he could move it freely. Overjoyed at this, he poked his head out and began to shout, ‘Hello is anyone here? Please help me’. No response, so he tried again, this time louder. Still no response. So he continued shouting until he felt exhausted and, drawing his head inside, decided to think of a way out.

This paragraph is only one example of the resilience of the tiny tree. The story runs into several pages as the sapling takes on the challenge to achieve the impossible. Others dismiss his idea, seeing it as an impossible challenge. While this theme is not novel in literature or lore (as it originates from Nagaland), what sets it apart is the tiny tree’s unique ability to tell its own story and wholeheartedly believe in it. Consequently, the tree embarks on a journey to live out its narrative. However, those who mock him create a separate narrative for themselves, which they then proceed to embody and live out.

At the end of every winter, there are stubborn stories of resurrection and resilience

Finally, as I understood it, our own stubborn stories are what endure in the end. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are the ones that last. The kind of storytellers we are, determines the course of our lives.

I’m mulling over the following words from Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning,

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

So, what’s the story you’d like to tell yourself. Maybe the following one. I hope you will enjoy listening to it despite the little background noise.

It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar A. Guest

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20 Replies to “We are all Storytellers”

  1. Hi Sonia – this is a delightful post … life struggles doesn’t it – and I love the sapling take on its struggle. I had an uncle who took me to a ‘dead’ stick in his garden saying to me … see this … it’s been here a few years – yet now it’s taken its life back … my uncle with that memory has stuck with me for over 30 years … happy memories – cheers Hilary

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  3. Thank you so much for the suggestion, it sounds really enticing. Even after actually publishing my stories, I often wonder am I really a storyteller? That said, I love your narration 🙂

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  4. Loved your post, Sonia, as well as your reading. You have such a youthful voice.
    We are all storytellers passing on our stories orally or through the written word and in a way creating history from our personal perspective.

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  7. Hi,

    I love Viktor Frankl quote. I also read it in one of his books. The uniqueness of mankind lies in the fact that we can choose. To have the right to choose is precious.

    Shalom shalom

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  8. Loved this post Sonia. We often forget how much resilience we have because sometimes it just seems easier to give up. But like that stubborn sapling, if we keep trying we can find new life.

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  10. Brilliant post, Sonia! Love this:

    “our own stubborn stories are what endure in the end”

    And I think it’s interesting how we interpret other’s stories with ourselves as a point of focus in making sense of it, as in how it impacts us – which then changes the story’s nuance.

    Beautiful reading of Edgar A. Guest’s poem too! It had a lovely sing-song quality ☺️

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    1. Yes, that too. You just added something that was on my mind when I was writing but slipped off midway. How we interpret the stories of those around us, impacts our understanding of the world around us. Well said!

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