first time, and the children said, “Can you sing it again?
We want to lie on your lap and sleep.” And they slept! One
child was lying on my lap while I was singing. It was really
beautiful.
Q: Is there any single underlying message that you
carry through your stories?
If at all anything, I would like my stories to inspire children
to just love being in this world, instead of saying, “Why
am I born into this world?” Children should be allowed to
celebrate life. Everything is a celebration. Today is a
celebration; this moment is a celebration.
And for the adults my message is that no one is perfect.
That’s something I have accepted a long time back. I find
the perfect in the imperfect. Who has not been guilty? We
are human beings, and the idea of presenting ourselves
into this world is maybe just to understand this and come
back. Imperfection is something very beautiful.
Q: That’s very motivating. What does the art of
storytelling mean to you personally?
It’s my mode to fulfill my spiritual, emotional and financial
needs. Some people do three different things in life to
satisfy these three needs, and I used to do that once upon
a time. But today my spiritual, emotional and financial –
everything is storytelling. I don’t bring in anything and I
don’t take back anything. I am there for today and in that
sense I am not cluttering the world.Q: That brings us to the last question: As a storyteller,
what does “Once upon a time” mean to you?“Once upon a time” for me is simply going into your own
self, away from everything else. It’s detoxing in a different
way, because in that one hour, how many people are
actually thinking of something else? It’s just my space, my
spiritual space. I go completely gaga, and I don’t know
what’s happening on any side. When I say or hear “Once
upon a time”, it’s a different form of meditation in that
space. And when so many people come together in that
space, it’s a journey that can happen only once in a lifetime.Q: Thank you so much Vikram, and I wish you all the
very best.July 2019 71