It's All The Same!

story : Nina Sabnani

pictures : Satyanarayan Suthaar

Pappuram and Kojaram are kaavadiya bhaats, storytellers from Rajasthan. Each has his own favourite story about why Lord Ganesha is always worshipped first, before any other god or goddess. They open their kaavads, the beautifully painted storytelling boxes, and begin – only to realise at the end of it that the stories may be different, but are still really the same!

In this is captured the nature of myths and their telling, that there is no one story about anything, it can always be this as much as that, across cultures or within the same, as here. Typical of kaavadiyas is the flat manner of narrating even improbable situations – anything can happen, that's how it is...