Conversations between two stories

I have been a writer for some time now, published a book, saw some success and yet the biggest high is always in writing that one delightful line, nothing else. Obsession with becoming a writer for me belittles my art and my capacity to create as opposed to entertain, because creativity is beyond mere entertaining what another wants to hear or see in the written word. As such sometimes I have very interesting comments and queries in my in box. 

One such day a young man wrote, 'I love the stories you write, are they all your own experiences from real life?'

I wrote back, 'Stories are stories..they are like our shadows, there is no yours or mine to them..as far as I am concerned. You visit a graveyard and there amidst the graves you will find innumerable stories..some told well and others not told at all. At the most one is the Sutradhar, an unbroken chord of the story & its teller. When I write my stories, if you will listen carefully you will find your stories hidden in them too echoing..just not captured..Just imagine if we all stayed within our own stories without passing on the baton to others to come and mingle there stories with ours, how one dimensional it would be  A tale is worth in gold only if you make it and share it & help conjure others from it ..at least by threefold.

No matter how many stories my words may conjure for you..there's always some missing, perhaps just enough to conjure stories of your own?'

The young man smiled, we have since then co-written many stories, in the little exchanges that happen between us, in the sharing of little joys and shadows of reality. But somehow I began to realize that every story he told me was that of his own. It was like a being overwhelmed with birthday wishes on your birthday. And much as one is grateful and happy for them, one is saddened at the excess of the idea of 'ME'. 

As we go through life, the stories that we tell and those that we seem to listen to are often increasingly about us and for us..occasions that celebrate oneself appear be claustrophobic at times to me ..giving rise for the need to look beyond our own and finding happiness in completely remote and unconnected ways and those are the true beautiful moments...telling the story of another for a change.

(Image from Google)