The Stories they tell...

Like every child, I too used to bother my parents for stories. Since my father was a rather inaccessible entity- him working in another country and all- my mother got the brunt of it. Through some kind of innate sadism I'd want a story exactly when she can't keep her eyes open. And thus we had interesting versions of Krishna pulling the uruli betwen the trees while Narasimha Rao and Nehru were cooking upmav.(yes, evidently my mothers half asleep stage made her imagination even more fertile)My brother and I used to watch out for these gems so we could tease her when she was fully conscious and among others who knew not of her subconscious yarns. (yes, we were evil children- it's a wonder why she didn't sell us to gypsies)

From those toddler stages we moved on to the age where we wanted stories of our parents' youth. Amma spun splendid epics of hordes of marauding cousins and hot food on rainy days, of huge dogs that turned into lambs at the sight of the children. Achan would talk about how his toys consisted of coconut leaves turned into carts, of having to share the single oversized bicycle with two older brothers, one very strict father and a little sister who always got her way, of jumping into the pond just about anytime he felt like it,of dipping into the great jar of honey whenever he passed by... And my heart would cry out for those simple joys lacking in the dreary desert sands of Kuwait. It was probably why my brother and I became close- I had no one else.

The years passed and the stories changed. Now it was stories of how if you didn't study you'd end up like so and so . And glowing stories of how someone else was doing so well and subtle hints which weren't so subtle. They weren't happy stories anymore. They were serious and grown up and didn't have the spring of the old stories. Those happy stories seemed to have been left behind sometime before your adolescence. Sadly, we grew up. I began to avoid the stories- they only created more confusions. The black white world was turned into a static gray. And again time skipped by swinging his scythe and humming a tune.

College happened, and there was a sudden shift in the equation. I was the one who told the stories while they listened.It was... different. I was in several ways an exhilarating feeling to have your parents listen to you as an equal. And naturally the feeling gets to your head. And much like most highs, it is followed by an deep bone piercing low. You are self reliant now. You do everything yourself,you don't need anyone, everybody(even you)believes that you don't need any help...

And when you go back to your sterile,empty hostel room and stare at the walls you realise how alone that makes you.

The phone rings. It's my mother.

"What happened mole? You don't sound happy."
"I'm fine amma, how are you?"
"Everything is alright over here. Achan and I were just talking about the time when you..."

And time smiles at me. Stories change, people change, places change- but just as we think the milestones are zipping away too fast we look down and see we're traveling the same road, the people who started it with us are still with us. Nowadays, the stories we share are mixtures. Some of it is theirs and some of it is mine. We supply each others examples, add colour to each others tales. The plots are intricate and new characters keep coming in. The stories change, but never stop.