Sometimes when daily routine consumption of digital fodder is broken due to Internet Service disruption, I get excited to be amongst the books. I have been planning to read “The Book of Rumi 105 Stories and Fables that Illumine, Delight, and Inform” translated by Maryam Mafi, but it has been postponed so often that it was disheartening for me.
The foreword by Narguess Farzad was done to perfection about stories crossing borders and taking on a life of their own in another part of the world. She spoke of folktales that travelled through the continents and where these stories are seamlessly taken in as a local grown variety.
The snapshot life of Rumi and his family perked up my interest to read the work and be inspired. We are all wanderers on this planet. Some need to become a vagabond to be inspired to articulate. When such inspired articulation touch reader then life has accomplished what it had set out to do.
Still a Student of Stories
I have been studying stories since my third grade when comics replaced chapter book, then to novelettes, to novel, to memoires, to series, to Asian dramas to middle eastern works, the journey doesn’t stop here. To become someone who has at the least sampled works from every continent is an aspiration.
I found that my thirst for reading books more than writing them. There have been so many authors who are still an exceptional inspiring writer. The first time, I felt enamoured by the story was Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, ‘The Pit and Pendulum.’ Mr. Poe created such eeriness and fascination to know how it would end.
Fascination with Stories
I consciously sort out stories from my 11th grade. Though my strength was poetry, I found other literary form such Essays, Dramas, Short Stories, Novels fascinating. I gave up getting educated in schools and colleges once I passed my secondary public exams. I was surprised when I found out I needed to do college after High School public exams!
Then, I realised that what I am learning thorough these literary works cannot be tested and graded but become a part of my personality over the flowing of my lifetime. Even today, I enjoy a good book over all other forms. Some books have propelled me to the finish, while the start was a little tedious.
Innumerable Books and Limited Time
I never look back at how many books I have read but I look forward to how many books I haven’t yet! Stories are everywhere and some lessons are best said with a snippet from life. The fireside stories, community well stories, and prayer gathering stories are various types of stories told and learned.
Where people get together for a common activity there are stories lurking to be released. Even in a gossip group where stories get vicious and cruel is still stories told and enjoyed at the expense of others. The fact that I have yet to read so much more in this lifetime makes me feel that my self-assigned task my never be completed.
Borderless and Immortal Stories
Our mind divides the world into continents-countries, nations-nationalities, and developed-developing. But the quality of a thought is what that differentiates us, but then, when we read deep, we might find that after all, ‘being humane’ was reason for all that was most expected from these stories. We may come from any nation!
Among the many stories, there are many continents that I did not have a chance to read their works. Now, as, I am reading Rumi’s 105 stories and fables and reminiscing the Amar Chitra Katha’s Jataka tales’ series, I wonder if all languages and nations are same, and our stories are same but why can’t we accept each other.
Differences Seem More Similar
Our human kindness is a universal attitude, but we separate it by the difference that just external difference. Our hearts are the same though our lifestyles may differ, yet we indulge on the difference overlooking the similarities between the people of the Earth. When I read books from different parts of the world I felt more similarity.
I remember reading Salman Rushdie’s book ‘The Midnight’s Children,’ with fascination about paan-eating and spittoons. I was reminded of the song, ‘Paan Khaye Saiyan Hamaro,’ song from the movie Teesri Kasam (1966). The mixed cultural setting of India allows us to be aware of others and their lifestyle.
Paan Eating Across Cultures
I found Paan culture unifying somehow. Making Betel leave, nuts, and slaked lime with some variation in the preparation is still the common ground for Hindu and Islamic religion. In conservative Brahmin society the Paan is self-served as a digestive and ritualistic practice.
The knowledge of such activity is partly because our colleges’ natural setting is to mix of students from various faiths. Our conversation during break hours and between the next lecturer arrives is often a sharing of our experiences and ideologies. Friends are made with ease and with a sense of acceptance.
During my schooling, my friends were mainly Christians, Hindus, and Jains. But in college, I came across diverse faith and not just that, but also, their mindset and personality was different. I felt much more secure in Meenakshi than anywhere else. Since it opened my limit view of life to a broader one.
Middling Ground of Communication
Globally, we are still looking for a middle ground where negotiation and camaraderie can be fostered. The surprising thing about having a narrow view and not willing to open to other point of views without getting over-agitated takes a lot of personal effort to take a different path of humanised understanding.
I always felt that we should approach friendship with other ideologies with some pinch of mining for similarities. When we do that, we are busy with what was same and not what was different amongst us. That kind of an attitude calls for greater understanding and willingness to coexist among diverse fractions
Joy of Rumi’s Stories
After persuasion of broken net, I found the time to finish the preface and read up the first story of the book only to stop after one, because I was taken over by the similarity of first story with my own story told by my mother. I kept second guessing and then realised if I did not stop that habit then the surprise of Rumi’s work would evade me.
The story ‘The Parrot and the Grocer’ reminded me of my childhood story about twin parrots who are left behind with a Vedic Pandit and a Butcher. How their behaviour at the end of the year visit by the Parrot catcher confirms our environment is partly responsible for the behaviour kinds we pick up and ape without thought.
There are many more stories of Rumi’s Masnavi I’s first story and the story in the back cover about a discussion to change faith between the Zoroastrian and the Moslem as a sample of such wise stories makes up the summer afternoon cool drink of Mint cooler and these fascinating parables. An Afternoon well spent indeed!
Itinerant Storyteller 