Visual storytelling has been around since Stone Age cavemen were drawing on the walls. A story can be considered as a framework for the entire human consciousness to function. Humans are story people. We live stories, stringing events of our lives into plots. We imagine stories, even create our past as a story, and project stories into our future too!
Stories have been told in all human civilisations from antiquity as depicted by the wall paintings of the Stone Age. Our country, the ancient land of Bharat, has a rich heritage of visual storytelling from the ancient past. Archaeological remains in Indus Valley civilisations show toys made of clay, cloth, wood and stone. Dance, drama, sculpting, temple wall carvings, calendar art, rangoli, painting, Ramlila, puppetry, street plays, anthropomorphic religious depictions, bhajans, festivals and art in many other diverse ways is a testament to creative storytelling in this culture.
We have stories in Vedas, Puranas, and Upanishads that tell stories of creation itself and also about the various deities that populate our ethereal spheres! Our two biggest epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, are the grandest stories ever written on the lives of Shri Rama and Shri Krishna, two incarnations of Lord Vishnu. Culture is passed down over generations in the form of stories woven into the tapestry of our lives. Grandparents and living celebrations narrating these cultural stories are as ubiquitous in India as the stars in the night sky.
