It’s a poignant tale of a city and 5 stories. Very apt in these times when we have become cultural monsters, willing to destroy any object that disagrees with our sense of aesthetic beauty, morality or behaviour.
The book by Omair Ahmed, is barely 130 pages long and will last longer than an hours’ reading time only if you intend to appreciate it like poetry that it is.
Set in the backdrop of ‘Dilli’ being burned and pillaged yet again, this time by the forces of Abdali in the 1700s, it’s the story of a now homeless ‘storyteller’ fleeing his beloved city and home. He resents the plunder of his city as much as he resents having to run away scared amidst a band of fleeing ‘cowardly baniyas’, leaving behind his beautiful ‘Dilli’ to blood thirsty marauders.
Lost in the loss of his ‘lover’, he stumbles across a handsome manor house in the middle of a jungle. Awestruck by its beauty, he also recognizes it as the property of one of the marauders. Negative emotions give way to confusion when he is confronted by an ‘angelic’ creature within its precincts. Unwillingly he is drawn to the house and the ‘begum’ within and begins the tale of the tales, love and love lost.
Here lies the mastery of Ahmed, juxtaposing the opposing multiple elements in such a way that you are forced to slow down and pay attention to each nuance and listen to each word, carefully. It would be unfair to reveal anything else about this slim volume. Enjoy ‘The Storyteller’ if you too cry for ‘Dilli’, for what it has become, for losing its ‘aabroo’ again and again but never losing its soul. Savour the pleasure of experiencing a tale so simple, devoid of convoluted efforts at literary brilliance because the crux of any good story lies in the intricacy of its simplicity.