Why are stories so magical? There is a difference between someone saying – hey tell stories to communicate, that is more impactful, versus you tell those stories as part of your experimenting and see that sparkle in your audience eyes, that emotional connection with them, the smile, the joy, the little impact you have on them, the applause you get, the human connection you make, how magically those stories are received by the audience that you are trying to impress - but how is that really? I have always believed in storytelling and use it as much as possible in my work, in my sales pitches, in my speeches, in my training programs, in my feedback sessions, in our team meetings etc. But what is that making these stories so magical, when a best fitting story for that context is told how is that it leaves such an indelible mark on a person?
As a dad you are supposed to do everything correctly for your child, that is especially very important when you have seen in your real life right in front of your eyes, how lives of children were ruined when their dads did not do that, how once in a lifetime opportunities slipped away, how a child went literally mad, for the only reason that the child without proper guidance from the dad, held its hopes high for his share of the ancestral property, how one child suffered such a premature death instead of becoming that healthy, vibrant, confident, successful young man, eventually starting his own family and could have had a great life from that point onwards, in all these instances, either the dads abandoned them in the name of some other responsibility or the dads spoiled them without any discipline or the dads just outright disappeared from these young children’s lives.
I have also seen when there were caring dads, that were there for the kids every step of the way, showing them, guiding them, nurturing them, encouraging them, instilling confidence in them even though it was such a shitty performance, in class or in competitions or in sports or anywhere else, just that simple boost, meticulous attention, feedback on the strengths of the kid, simple analysis, modest guidance, unpretentious open conversations in a mature way at the right age motivated the kid to take that work seriously, find a little joy in that work and enabled the kid to put together a wonderful performance and so on. And many of these successful South Indian professionals especially the ones in the US, had some phenomenal middle class dads that were with them, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google is one such middle class born and bred kid, even though he might be an outlier, but a good number of South Indian professionals here in the US that have completed their under grad Engineering degrees in India and graduate degrees in the US are brought up by such middle class dads. One fond memory I have when I was a kid was this classmate’s dad, who would find out about these competitions and talent exams in big cities like Chennai and would arrange a trip for all of us kids from this small town Cheyyar. Cheyyar is a small town about 100 kilometers from Chennai, at that time there was only one high school in that small town and it was a Government school, Government Boys Higher Secondary School Cheyyar, that had been there for a long, long time, established in 1917, so for any such opportunity to participate in those exams and competitions we had to travel to Chennai as that is the nearest big city. This dad would organize this trip and he will plan everything, we would meet up early morning at the Cheyyar bus stand and take the bus at 4:00 AM in the morning and would reach Chennai in the morning around 7 AM, he would find the school, take us to the school, then we would write those exams, have a late lunch, coffee, tea evening tiffin or dinner in one of those fancy city restaurants and then come back to our town late in the night. We would marvel at everything Chennai has with our mouth wide open at all the Chennai buildings, the wide roads, fancy cars, schools and especially the city kids, some of them would speak very good, very fluent English, we would envy them so much, they would wear nice expensive looking uniforms, some of them would get dropped in fancy cars, fancy motorcycles etc., then finally we would all travel back to our small town Cheyyar late in the night. My dad had a motorcycle at that time, he would drop me in that motorcycle early in the morning around 4:00 AM and he would pick me back up in that motorcycle late in the night. So part of the reason I have made it this far and many of my friends had made this far in life is because of these dads, that pretty much gave away everything in life and focused only on the kids, generally speaking a majority of the south Indian middle-class parents are like this, once they have kids, their life revolves pretty much around the kids.
So I try as much as possible to pass on that love and care that my dad had given me to my daughter as well. And also the other thing I have observed among the South Indian kids is that some of them are not as confident as their classmates. I used to be like that, I used to be afraid of the well in the village fields, I would just go running far away whenever I saw a well in the fields and my dad saw that, he told me you are going to become a man and once you grow up you have to take care of a lot of responsibilities in life and you cannot be scared of silly things like this and in order to boost my courage and build some bravery in me, he put me in Karate class, so I was in a Karate class from a young age and the fun activities among the class boys was to demonstrate each other’s strength by showing all the kicks, the punches and the blocks we have learnt in the karate class.
I kinda saw this in my daughter as well, so in order to enhance her confidence, her courage and boldness my wife and me decided to put her in a singing and guitar class, then we also engaged her in an Open Mic program where she gets to perform everything, she learned that week. Unless you practice whet you learnt there is no point in just learning you really have to take to that and deploy that in the real field and practice and do exactly what that faculty is supposed to do. That has helped her a lot not only in her confidence, boldness and courage that also made her a nice public performer, speaker, presenter and a storyteller.
And as part of this we just wanted to music videos to get her name out. One such recently made music video is this - https://youtu.be/D_E2wEfZ2nw . The easy part is making the song. Once that song is made the video is made to engage the audience in an emotional way. I have this one music video producing expert that mixes some fancy visuals and makes it look nice and appealing. For some reason I asked for something different from this guy and he looked at it and said, hey man I am not getting any inspiration for anything different, sorry I cannot help you. So I searched for someone else, found this new guy, looked at the reviews and then assigned the project to him. Then waited for a few days and then the final video was delivered to me.
When I watched that video, what this expert had done was, he had weaved visuals of the story into the music video. The song is written by this poet for her niece, this poet wrote thing song as an advice to the niece, which basically talks about how this niece has to handle things on her own, be bold, be independent, be courageous in her various stages and ages in life. This expert has crated visuals of this girl child being very young, just learning to walk, then going to school, running in the field, then going to college, completing the college degree, graduating, attending interviews, getting her own job by attending interviews and passing those interviews with flying colors, even though he had only added a few footage here and a few footage there to reflect the topic that the singer is singing about, what was dramatic about that was that the human brain when it sees those bits and pieces here and there, the human brain automatically connects those dots and creates a story in its head in a magical way, even though the story had only bits and pieces here and there. So the human brain has this amazing capability to connect the dots in a magical way and create a movie in its head based on the past exposure, past experience and past emotions.
For example look at the photo below.
Some real-life examples that support this argument
One magic not only I was smitten by, but also every kid from South India that grew up along with me wouldn’t fail to notice is the popularity of the South Indian movie industry and the business it has become nowadays. This movie business has profoundly impacted at least the people from two major states in South India, sometimes even the population doesn’t realize how much this move industry has impacted them, changed their lives, made both better and worse, because whichever movie stars become the most popular eventually become that Chief Minister of that state at some point in their life time, all that is due to the magic of this story telling phenomenon.
The whole movie business became even more popular back in 1930s when a West Virginian Ellis R Dungan visited Chennai at that time and started making movies based on the old school tribal dances, dramas, music performances that were being performed in South India at that time. It’s a fact that’s hard to digest, that an American filmmaker, Ellis R. Dungan, who knew very little Tamil, directed M.S. Subbulakshmi in the ethereal role of Meera , in a story steeped in bhakti, that went on to become one of the most successful films of the 1940s. Even now the trolley used in South Indian movie making is called Dungan trolley because supposedly Dungan created that trolley for his movie making. A character like Ellis Dungan would surely fascinate anyone. An American who landed on a whim and a friend’s invitation in Madras, made mostly Tamil mythological stories in the 1930s and 40s. Made 11 Tamil, one Telugu and one Hindi (partially dubbed) film! Who directed M.G.R. in his first ever film role. Who introduced kissing scenes in the films he made in the 30s. Who made his films with a completely local crew, communicating largely in very little broken Tamil and sign language. Made Madras home for 15 years and transformed from the “vellaikaran” to “Dungan Aiyya”. Created a trolley to shoot, using a part of his car, which later got named the Dungan Trolley.
Back in the day it was not this mainstream as it is today, what do I mean by that, if you want to watch movies today, and if you are bored with the same Hollywood style of movies, Bollywood has become a reasonable mainstream alternative for entertainment. The elaborate dance sequences with so many dancers dancing in huge movie sets, performing some intricate beautiful highly convoluted choreographic moves matching the beats of the Indian drums, the veena, the other Indian musical instruments with either the Hindustani music or the Carnatic music has won the hearts of millions of people not only in India but in so many countries, such as China, Japan, of course the USA and in so many international markets. Part of the reason is the Indian diaspora that has ventured across oceans to attain success both in terms of wealth as well as intellectual accomplishments has spread all over the world and has become a nice audience that wants to enjoy such movies.
Multiple movie technicians from the South Indian movie industry have won the most coveted Oscar awards. Listed below are some examples
The cinema market in India is projected to reach $4.86 billion in revenue, with an annual growth rate of 4.99% from 2024 to 2029. In 2022, Indian cinema earned ₹15,000 crore ($1.9 billion) at the box-office.
The visibility the movie industry provides for the people that dominate the movie industry is so good, they eventually get into politics and even become key ministers and sometimes Chief Ministers of the South Indian states as well. The seasoned veteran politicians thoroughly understand the clout the actors hold with their audiences and often form alliances with them by offering key ministerial posts and other honorary cabinet positions.
Although Bollywood is associated with Indian films, it is important to note that Indian cinema spans across the country - with successful regional cinema as well. This combination makes the Indian movie industry has been the largest producer of films for over a decade, consistently surpassing the United States and China. The country also sold the highest number of movie tickets in 2018. In a 2018 ranking of the leading box office markets worldwide, India was ranked seventh, with a revenue of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars.
Indian movies have become so popular in foreign countries such as China, Japan, GCC countries that include Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait, then Taiwan, South Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia and many more.
Overall the Indian style of art comes across as very different compared with the same old western style of movies and music. Especially with the Indians really coming outside of their countries in a big way only after the 1990s, when the then Indian Prime Minister Mr. P.V. Narasimha Rao opened up the country, dismantled India's License Raj, transitioning the country to a market-oriented economy. Teaming up with Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, Rao's policies saved India from economic collapse and opened up the Indian economy to foreign investment. His bold policies laid the foundation for India's economic growth in the subsequent decades, leaving a lasting impact on the country's development trajectory.
Here are some of the peripheral effects of the popularity of Indian cinema worldwide,
The next major trend that is happening is the entertainment and creative economy boom is coming up. What exactly is that ? As technology has not only become ubiquitous but also much more capable with our lives and getting taken over by Social media, Robo taxis, Elon Musk’s robots, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technologies, humans are going to have more time in their lives and are going to be spending more time watching entertainment shows, movies, stories etc., Imagine what happens if we all need to work only 4 days in a week and also this Universal Basic income becomes a reality, meaning you will be given a basic pay of $40,000 every year for your living by the government, then you will work only in disciplines that you are passionate about and get fulfillment from doing your job. This means lot more time in our lives to entertain ourselves.
Okay if story telling is so magical, Why is it a CURSE ?? Let me explain……
But these movies have taken advantage of that capability of the human brain and its ability to take the audience into the vicarious world, by telling those stories in those movies in such a mesmerizing manner. Often these fans are illiterates or have had a very little education, often gets enthralled by the vicarious thrill and joy they get by watching the movie heroes do things that cannot be done in the real world. Once they get into that world, they don’t want to come out of that vicarious world or when the next movie is released they want to go back into the vicarious world again and again and want to spend their lives there forgetting their real life responsibilities, forgetting that they have to find a career for themselves, have family responsibilities they have to attend to, have to grow up and be that bread winner for the family, taking care of the elderly parents etc.
And the fans of these movie stars have fallen prey to those stories, get sucked into this movie phenomenon and sometimes do these crazy things, like buying milk and doing pooja to their favorite movie stars with that expensive milk, this is especially serious when there are folks in these cities where some people don’t even get to eat food for all the 3 times for a day and have severe drought seasons. So this is the state of the fans, you would think, you know what these fans are illiterates, or may be young, not mature enough, still growing up and that is how they are going to act. This gets even worse in the other nearby state, where the fans pray for the success of their favorite movie star’s movies by doing animal sacrifices.
But on the other hand, the movie stars, the dancers, the singers, the comedians, the artists you would think would have fared far better, but they also have been equally got sucked into this story telling phenomenon because of this magical journey & experience and have their personal lives impacted big time in an unhealthy way. These artists have done phenomenally well in their professional lives have entertained millions and millions of people, made millions and millions of rupees, not just in the domestic market but also in the international market, which is even more attractive in terms of revenue, as they now get to export these movies and make money in foreign currencies, which is even more attractive for them. Some of them have won some amazing awards including Oscars that are not any less talented in their creative faculties, one of them is even called as the Michael Jackson of South India. But if you look at the flip side, many of their personal lives are a mess, many have lost their children at such a young age because the movie star or the artist have gotten so busy in the movie making business they don’t have the time or the patience to take care of their own families so their wives give up and are not able to care for their children and have let their children die. How sad is that? They also get sucked into this story telling movie business, such is that power of the brain to connect the dots and make these mesmerizing imaginations in their head and hence the power of the story telling phenomenon.
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