The Folk Art of Storytelling: The Narratives of Tejaji And Galaleng from the Oral Literature of Rajasthan

While the tradition of literature in India is approximately 3500 years old, the history of printed literary texts to circulate among masses, is merely 200 years old. The Shift from the oral- aural era to the era of the printed word was the first technological transition in cultural scenario. Ever since literature has had its mutations. Storytelling has ever been at the core of every human expression. In the present world, storytelling has entered the phase which is marked by artificial intelligence, virtual reality and experiential art. This traversing has been tremendously fast and has given mankind a lot what is worth being called progress but at the same time it has distanced mankind from its roots. Today’s literate world treats every story in strikingly different ways from the ways of the world of the folk. This paper aims at illustrating the elemental nature of folk storytelling through the two selected folk narratives from Rajasthan, the ballad of Galaleng and the ballad of Tejaji. These epic-length stories have been composed, transmitted and sung by unknown and almost illiterate authors and artists across generations. These stories have survived to deliver the eternal value systems. It comes in direct contrast with the modern storytelling which is more of a psychological and technological phenomenon, where imagination is given tactility. In the folk storytelling mental faculties play the larger part whereas in the modern storytelling technology makes the greater imprint. The construction patterns of the folk stories which have no constraints of the idea of unity of time, place and action have also been analysed. This paper also takes into account the present state of the dying orality with its richness and tries to highlight the need for technological intervention for recording, archiving and preserving these riches of immense value for the posterity.