A man with no story

I stared at the junction of Bir – Matru × Sukhabag – Chaugan × Chaugan – Sansal. Circled my eyes all around the junction and rode down towards the Sukhabag–Chaugan road. Within 10 min of driving, I rode deep down into the lower Bir village side. There were volunteers along the dried-up river bed filled with waste, clearing the plastics to allow the water stream to reach its destination.

The crowd started thinning, and a flock of sheep showed up, blocking my ride. I waited there without honking; all I could hear was their murmur and the chittering of sparrows and a few long-tailed shrikes jumping from the east to the west corners of the trees beside me.

Once the sheep cleared my way, I moved a bit further, flabbergasted by the views of the fields and meadows to the left of my road. I parked my bike and stepped into the unwoven trail that led me into the vast meadows.

There, I met an old woman, taking care of her cows in the open field. The fields here were not plain but stepped down into the valley. She had a long stick in her hand and kind but sharp eyes.

I said "hi, kaise ho?"

She looked at me and shifted her eyes at the cattle back again.

I said, "ek photo le sakte?"

She said, "Tell me a story."

I thought for a second and said, "I don't know any," and prepared to turn away.

She pointed to a single orange tree standing alone in the middle of the green field.

"Go pick an orange from that tree."

I walked to the tree, reached up and plucked one.

Suddenly, a strong wind came out of nowhere, picked me up like a piece of paper and threw me high into the sky. I flew and came crashing down next to the mud house.

There was a man standing at the door of the mud house, with some cattle beside him. He looked at me and said, "Tell me a story, traveller."

Again, I had nothing. "I don't know any," I said.

"Then go cut some grass from the field and feed my cattle," he said.

Strange. I cut the grass and fed it to the cattle one by one. Just before I finished the grass, the cow asked, "Tell me a story."

I looked up into the cow's eyes with surprise and hopelessness, and the wind came again. Strong and sudden. It threw me back up into the sky.

This time I came down in a forest. Every tree had its top cut off. Half the trunk is left with baby branches at the top. A heavy silence. I walked slowly through the broken forest.

I saw a small house with a fence around it. I walked towards it as I felt it was safe and someone would help me. A young boy was standing behind the fence, looking at me.

"Who are you? Kahan se tum?" he asked.

I thought about it. He looked like a 4-year-old kid. I tried explaining myself, but couldn't speak a single word.

"I don't know," I said.

The boy laughed. Not in a mean way. Like I had said, something funny and true. As if he knew the answer to that question.

"Pick up a stone and give it to me," he said.

I looked down and picked up a smooth grey stone. But he was gone.

No sound. No footsteps. Simply gone.

Then the wind came again. Now, it threw me up to the same orange tree in the middle of the field.

The orange was still in my hand. The old woman was standing at the same spot with her cattle around her.

I held out the orange. She looked at me as if nothing had happened.

"Tell me a story," she said, without looking at me.

This time I opened my mouth and told her everything that had happened to me since morning. The mud house. The wind. The man and his cattle. The broken forest. The boy who disappeared. My answer to the boy that I was no one. The same stupid orange. All of it. She listened quietly.

"Well, traveller," said the old woman, "wherever you are, from now on, whenever anybody asks you to tell a story, tell them that story, and you are the man who will have a story to tell."

Out of all the lies from the above story — The Chaugan Road, The valley, The old woman with cattle, The orange tree in the middle of the green field, The mud house, The kid, The half broken forest — The wind, everything was True. Except that they were not connected in any way.

Don't you think all the stories we've ever heard are the same?

A Tale is a part truth and a part lie. None can determine what's truth and what's a lie. They are indistinguishable. Undisputable.