Storyteller, Storyteller
tell us a myth
A beautiful, exotic tale in depth
Lend us your voice
Lull us into your rhythm
As you map out worlds afar on our senses.
Storyteller, Storyteller
tell us a story
in the many tongues we know you speak.
Tell us your tales of travellers and warriors
of maids and prisoners,
of genies trapped in lamps
and pirates after sunken treasure;
those enchanting sorcerers, apothecaries and mystic dragons
these magnificent men and women
who inspire a range of fantastic careers.
Tell us in Latin and Hebrew,
in Sanskrit and Parsi
We’ll carry it forward in English and Urdu
In Tamil and Punjabi.
In the languages lost and the new ones that form
‘For from the old comes forth the new’ you say,
Then tell us how languages are born.
Storyteller, Storyteller
Tell us in poems and songs,
in ancient styles long forgone.
Tell us about dreamers who dared to dream
And in all the ways they spoke their soul,
through all the languages that lived within them
those who built something for themselves to grow roots in.
Storytellers, they exist in many people,
as fathers, mothers, teachers and friends
the village elders and the strange minstrels
in oracles and bards.
The tales they carry are proof of mental luggage
those ‘ek aur Kahani’ nights buried in our subconscious,
those toe-curling dramatic excursions that shaped our childhood.
Stories speak the language of the veiled;
the language endorsed by the rendition of oral tales.
These are veins that keep cultures alive
despite the slow death of some languages,
their cultural charm flows like blood in their tales
as the remnants of an existence that clung tightly to their storytellers.
This unending desire to hear a story,
to read and never be satisfied.
Those worlds they create and share
the worlds that see many a soul visit and many who wish to stay;
that hold secrets and the repertoire never exhausts itself.
After all, it’s replenished by the millions who undertake storytelling
and tell their stories on a daily basis.
So dear reader to you I ask,
would you take on this mantle
of a storyteller’s task?
I promise it’ll be fun
when you become the Storyteller
who has a story for us.
So, pick your language, pick your style
and narrate to us your world
until this one too, we exile.
About the author:
Maria Celestina Fernandes is a student of Literature at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and is currently an intern at AfterWord.