The Metaphors of My Mind - Kathha Petti 3

This week my 7-year-old discovered my Kathha Petti which I have been hiding away from her. Many of the objects in the Petti belong to her, and I was very worried she would take them away :) Anyway, now that she had uncovered my secret, it was only fair I told her and her friends a story.  

My limitation with this story was the lack of symbolic objects. The symbolic props are what I normally use to weave metaphorical elements into the stories, they are my safety valve to explore fantasy and imagination. I did tell a story that has elements of fantasy like talking cockroaches, and enchanted forests, but not having the freedom of using metaphorical/ symbolic objects made me extremely conscious. There is comfort in the symbolic props, they provide freedom to navigate into a different trajectory when I sense my story hitting a roadblock.  This rendering I started in discomfort. 

1) I observed the need for a 'Hero' a central figure who frames the story from a people, relationship, interactive and moral frame. It is through the 'Hero' that certain desirable traits are conveyed. In this story - kind, simple, plant-loving, compassionate, etc. are the desirable traits of the Hero. 

2) I also observed a need to frame the story in locations. It is through the framing of the setting that direction is sought for other elements, atmospherics, and characters. The story moves to many locations and at all these points, I found it necessary to situate them to these places using relevant elements. 

3) I made up for the lack of symbolic objects by using atmospheric words like -  gleaming, glistening, enchanted, loud, dark cold dungeon, etc. 

Watch/ hear my story here- 

As you know the renderings of the Kathha Petti are unplanned and so many a times the stories are very basic, but they are never incoherent. I am able to create moods, actions, and behavior from disjointed objects. Micheal Gazzaniga in the Storytelling Brain says coherence is the role of the Left Brain. Even though I did not have symbolic objects in my props, like George Lakoff says, I was conceptualising my inner thoughts through Metaphors! Let me give you a couple of examples to elucidate - 

1) I picked a camel and the man as my central characters ( I don't know why though). Now, if I had to situate the story in a location, it has to be in a desert, as camels don't live in other terrains. This connection happened instantaneously. I also said that Napoklu our Hero has a green thumb and could grow anything with a flourish. Deserts are not the most fertile places, so I decided to situate the location in the Oasis which is the only green part of a desert. If I had not made this connection the power of the green thumb that I had vested in Napkolu would be of no use. This connection too was drawn rather instantaneously. My mind has already seen my props as Camel = Desert,  Plants in a desert = Oasis. 

2) The green carpet takes the Camel and Napoklu into the underground kingdom. There had to be a character who could live underground and be creepy. Creepy underground creature = Cockroach. These connections were magically quick!  

With this rendering, I had randomly created a narrative for which I had to find supporting scenarios. That I was able to make these connections rather effortlessly makes me look at the 'self metaphor system' rather seriously. I now discern what George Lakoff means when is talks of neural connections between the Source Domain and the Target Domain, and that meaning must be embodied! 

Though this is not my favorite story in terms of telling (though the kids loved it), it is the best so far in terms of revealing the actions in my brain.