Storytelling- celebration of different forms!

What happens when you go to sleep watching the show ‘The Get Down’ on Netflix and wake up to listen to Mukesh’s Ramayana while doing your 30minute Yoga and exercise set? You begin to see the parallels between the two. At the completely bare bone level, stripped of all externalities of technique and divorced from the emotional, the form of both Hip-hop and Ramayana shares an uncanny resemblance-the story being told.... The story, the subject that moves you could be personal or mythological but the angst, emotion or the ‘bhakti’ is real.
I know I am underselling the rhythm/musical component of hip-hop to make my case but for me it is the spoken word, the story that makes a great hip-hop song. I bet Grandmaster Flash will also agree with me, you need the wordsmith before you get to the ‘Get down’..

Next I was in the theatre watching ‘Kubo and the two string’, I guess the movie had already won me over when I saw the trailer-the shamisen rendition of ‘while my guitar gently weeps’ literally cutting through the big ocean wave under the ominous sky. The movie is more about the form, execution and technique that keeps you spellbound but slightly lighter on character development and genuine humor..
However I found sufficient to cheer in the movie-the Japanese folklore elements have been skillfully incorporated and the execution seems sincere. There was magic in the story but no special concocted super powers, and the hero didn’t slay his nemesis but rather brings him back to humanity. These elements of the movie were quite refreshing for me since they eschewed the common themes currently being spawned by major film studios.

Moving on let’s talk about books, since we are talking about story telling. Over the last few years, I have found a reliable genre of books that naturally holds my attention-‘the Mountain books’. I picked up my first copy from the legendary Narain book store in Nainital-The Nanda Devi Affair by Bill Aitken. While travelling I prefer to get a book that can effectively block out the passage of time-the interminable wait at the railway station and the airport, and this book just did the trick for me. It is either the lofty inner desire to go on one such trek or the guilt of not exploring my own backyard (Uttarakhand) that always attracts me to these books.
Next I picked up ‘Into thin air’ by Jon Krakauer. Without indulging into the controversy regarding the accurate portrayal of individual characters of the book, I felt I was deeply invested in the book because it presented a vivid physical and challenging view of the snowy mountains and an incisive understanding of psychological motivations of different people attempting to conquer the highest peak.
I am looking forward to starting another mountain yarn tonight-‘Becoming a Mountain’-by Stephen Alter..

In between there was Stranger Things on Netflix and enough Donald Trump stories to keep you entertained and shocked in equal measure! 

This August has been rich.. :)