Story Telling

Since few weeks been travelling for work. This is the first time, been away from family for such a long period. Only contact with family was the mandatory phone call to my significant other after Dinner and exchanging notes over day’s activities at both ends. Further, on few occasions have been staying without newspapers and/or television. Instead of getting annoyed, adapted with this new situation, I enjoyed in different way catching up with some good reading. In a strange sort of way, it looked like going back to hostel days. Sometimes, the unpleasant weather conditions kept me inside the room.

Although books were there to keep me good company, it gave me plenty of time to ponder over life and in particular events during the past ten years which I could remember. Just for my reference, made few jottings and now sitting here in front of my computer trying to put all these fragments together. Now, trying to make a sense of it all. These are random thoughts which may need further thinking, probing, exploration and explanation in due course.

About Family and Story Telling:

Family according to me is like a harbor or an airport. Each one of the member is like a ship going on voyage everyday, stepping out each day for a new venture, fresh challenges. End of the day, we need to repair, recoup,

refuel and get charged for the battle of the next day. My old Army friend who is no more had a famous old Sindhi saying. One night stay at home and I am ready to fight another battle. My Home is God’s Home. While on the topic of family, I fondly recall my grand mother’s popular saying in Kannada: When crisis (Sankata) comes we need God (Venkataramana). Same way, we need family in time of crisis, therefore, it is essential to nurture our family relationships. Family is precious.

In bygone days, we all lived in groups that had old wise men and women who told stories to the young ones if they thought that those stories might be relevant to our needs. Stories from their own experiences, earlier generations, ancestors in the family and from mythology like Ramayana, Bhagwat and Mahabharata. This was useful in laying a robust foundation of values and virtues. This was called ‘Wisdom’ and it served to pass on experiences and learning of one generation to the next.

Somehow, we have become over confident and neglected this ability to learn from the stories of our elders to a certain extent, fundamentally because today we live in a much larger and faster world.

We tend to believe that wisdom is in books and in search engines to provide us instant answers to the problems we encounter. I wish it was true, but unfortunately it is not. Stories, however, help us creates values in young ones and only values can help us to face the crisis and rescue us to safety, too. We need to bring back story telling and listen to the stories.

As a HR professional, sometimes. I believe this applies to organizations too. We need to bring in story telling by Seniors. Juniors need to listen and remember only what is relevant and important. Needless to mention, ignore the rest.

Obviously and preferably over a glass of chilled Beer!

Cheers!!!