The Storyteller: & Some Ancient Tales

By Siddharth Guru

The book is divided into four parts. First two parts are about the conversation which happens between a storyteller and an ordinary man. This changes the way of seeing life for one of them. Part 3 involves a concise version of Ramayana- the greatest Indian scripture. It also has a story from Mahabharata. Part 4 has a dialogue on spirituality between young kid Nachiketa and God of death-Yama.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716883538

Book preview

The Storyteller

& Some Anctient Tales

Siddharth Kishore Guru

To

Sadhguru,

Motherland,

&

Pandavni artists of India.

Contents

Preface

PART I – The storyteller

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

PART II- Pulan’s story

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

PART III – Stories of ancient India

Ramayana

Arjuna’s disguise

PART IV – The dialogue

Nachiketa’s curiosity

Afterword

Preface

World is full of stories. My childhood was spent in listening and making of many stories. In current times, when we are facing the floods of videos online, reading a story in letter has become a soulful experience. To value the short time a person can dedicate these days for reading, I have tried to write every part and paragraph of this book as a blissful experience for my readers. Book touches the everyday life of all human beings. Ones who are on spiritual journey will derive thoughts from this work as I believe humbly. Ones who have never read any Indian legendary tales will get the core flavour and setting of almost all Indian ancient stories. Lastly, the people who just want to read some light mood yet thought provoking stories will be satisfied by the work, I humbly believe again. From these three categories of readers, many will be able to connect all the parts of book and derive a basic theme of book. This will be on to the readers what they derived out of it as no two minds think alike. Yet to give a piece of my mind’s state while I was finishing up the book, I have left an afterword for the book which will connect the parts and give out a theme. A reader who does not agree with it and thinks otherwise will also be completely correct.  Part I of the book is about a Storyteller’s life. Part II is about Storyteller listening to an ordinary man named Pulan. Part I and II are parts of same story I developed two years back. It is set in medieval times of India. Setting of stories is in central India, the Deccan India and the sacred city of Benaras. Part III contains two offerings. A full-length yet concise version of Indian legendary Epic The Ramayana. Other is just a short story from another Indian legend Mahabharata. To give an introduction about these two epics will take every possible word ever invented in any language of Earth. Indians live these two books and the characters in them throughout their whole life. Circumstances make them play the different characters at different times. The essence of Indian society, relations, culture and thoughts about life comes from these two books. My effort is just to give the basic idea of these books with a fresh writing for new age. None of the characters and events are changed by me. I do not wish to disturb the perfection of them, I am just the storyteller in Part III. Part IV is the conversation humans having with each other and to the God for millenniums. What happens after we die? What is the reason for one’s sufferings? How can we rise above them? Is soul and the God real? Lord Buddha had this conversation with himself. Arjuna had this talk with Krishna. Mahavira understood this too for his enlightenment. Several million humans have this conversation everyday in some corner of their room, their church, with their priests and godmen. In my story, Nachiketa is having this conversation with Lord Yama- the lord of death. Story is inspired from a tale of Katha Upanishad. A book of antiquity, Katha Upanishad is one of many Upanishads present and lost. Only Hindu religious philosophy books i.e. Upanishads have a rare quality of greatly defining a philosophy in all chapters of book but taking a leave from it in last few chapters, and self-questioning the philosophy presented in previous chapters. This increases the quality of arguments in Indian philosophical traditions for it is true that no one can completely understand the creator. Lastly, if I have greatly misfired from my aim. I want to invoke an old blessing with my head bowed down and hands folded in Namaste. To err is human, to forgive divine.

SIDDHARTH KISHORE GURU

March, 2020

PART I – The storyteller

Chapter 1

In the later half of 18th century India, somewhere In Central Provinces, there lived a man known as The Storyteller. He had been known by that name for almost 3 decades and honestly for him, now his real name didn’t matter anymore. He hailed from a tradition of India in which kids are trained to remember and recall many great stories, folk tales, urban legends, mythological adventures and other work. Indian society divided into systems of the castes and the varnas made it compulsory for people to follow the job and traditions of their households after their fathers and mothers. The storyteller was initiated into this at the age of 7 and till the age of 16, he knew every Hindu scripture in its story form. He could talk deep about the characters of those tales and recall every single incident in those tales at any moment. He was sharp, so in next three years he gained the knowledge of important scriptures of Buddhists and Jains too. This made his dad, uncles, cousins and other caste members proud of him. Next his education included some euphoric dance including emotions and gestures and later on mastery in playing one string guitar or flute while dancing and reciting story from The Mahabharata or The Ramayana or any other legend for that matter. So ultimately at the age of 21, time had come for him to leave his home and do what he