Raconteurs #3

Daughter: You know what happened in school today?

Dad: What happened?

Daughter: I heard a new story about how the world came into existence and now I’m confused.

Dad: Really? So what story did you hear today?

Daughter: A long, long time ago lived a curious little boy. The boy always asked questions to his parents and they had no answers whatsoever. The parents were simple farmers and wanted the boy to stop bothering them but the boy was persistent and would not stop until he had the answers to his questions.

The boy wanted to know why it rained from the skies, why the grass was green, why pigs could not speak their language, why the sun was visible only during the day, why he had two eyes and two ears but only one nose and one mouth, etc. The boy just wanted to know but his parents had no answers.

So his parents came up with a simple solution. They told him that a mighty being lived up in the clouds and that it created the world as it stands. This, they thought, would satisfy the boy and keep him quiet but they were wrong. The boy began to ask more and more questions. Now he wanted to learn about this mighty being who resided up in the clouds.

To solve this problem the boy’s parents began to tell him elaborate stories and this time the plan worked. The boy loved to hear about the mighty being and was very impressed. Soon he stopped asking questions and instead started narrating those stories to all his friends. Soon enough every child in the village had heard and shared the stories about the mighty being who resided up in the clouds.

When the kids grew up and had babies of their own they passed on the stories to them as well and the cycle continued. The stories got more and more elaborate with time and nobody dared question it lest they incur the wrath of the mighty being who resided up in the clouds.

Soon enough the village had temples and festivals to honour the mighty being. They prayed to him in times of trouble and thanked him whenever they had a bountiful crop.

Dad: That sounds so bogus and far-fetched.

Daughter: Wait there is more. Every region had its own curious child and its own stories trying to explain and make sense of the world around them. So the world was created in one particular way and every region had their own version of it.

Dad: So how exactly was the world created?

Daughter: Nobody knows, Dad. Nobody knows. All we know is that we are all raconteurs.

(To be continued)