What's a Telling?

Questions you may have before you begin.

You call this saga a Telling. What exactly is a Telling?

Imagine your family gathered around a fire after sunset. An elder rises, and your family's story comes alive through story, song, and drama. Each evening ends with a cliffhanger, drawing you back night after night.

That's a Telling.

Some of our earliest memories as Aroras, from nearly 4,000 years ago, come from these ancient Tellings.

Did they really tell stories this way? And did they actually call them Tellings?

They did. And yes—that's exactly what the ancients called them.

Family stories—the Tellings—weren't simply read. They were experienced. They were living performances that brought everyone together to sing, laugh, reflect, and remember. During the day, people talked about the previous night's Telling while eagerly awaiting that evening's. 

The Telling was a bubble. During a Telling, everyone lived inside that bubble.

Who told these Tellings?

A Gathin, the teller of a Gatha. But he was no ordinary storyteller.

In the earliest Tellings, the Gathin was often a Suta—a royal charioteer-poet who rode beside our kings and witnessed history-making events. He was part warrior, part historian, part storyteller, and part performer. As someone the king entrusted his life to, he was a celebrity in his own right.

He spoke, sang, and painted scenes with his hands, summoning battles, heroes, and journeys from empty air. The audience joined him in singing refrains.

But he did not come alone. He was backed up my musicians—strings, flute, drum—who played catchy five-note tunes that people hummed for weeks afterward.

When a Gathin arrives, excitement spreads through the village. 

People aren't gathering simply because there is a story to hear. 

They're gathering because he is telling it.

If Ash in Our Bones is a Telling, who's its Gathin? Is that you?

No. The Gathin is ONE WHO CAME BEFORE, whose name appears on the book, and whose imagined likeness is the author portrait.

Within the family, the Gathin’s role belonged to its elder—often a grandfather—who gathered children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and their families to remind each new generation who they were.

ONE WHO CAME BEFORE is the grandfather whose voice carries our saga. I stand beside him and add my own voice only where living memories call for it. He is a warm and comforting figure speaking to his own family. His affectionate greetings and farewells are not literary devices; they are simply how I imagine an elder would speak to those he loves. By the end of the journey, you will discover that his name means more than it first appears.

Every generation needs a Gathin.

Perhaps someday you'll be a Gathin to your own descendants.

I noticed Ash in Our Bones consists of seven Gathas. What is a Gatha?

Long before written history, families remembered their heroes through Gathas—story-songs that preserved the memories, values, and lessons they never wanted future generations to forget. Our saga consists of twenty-one Tellings grouped into seven Gathas.

Why did you choose to tell our family's story as a Telling?

Because some of our earliest memories as Aroras come from the ancient Tellings.

But there's something else.

When I was twelve, I was chosen to lead the school’s daily Vedic prayer. Since I knew the verses by heart, I’d often drift into a daydream as I recited them.

I’d see an extended family settled around a fire after sunset. Their evening prayer was done, dinner cooked over the same fire. The elders huddled under blankets, babies nestled in their mothers’ arms. They listened intently as one of the older sons unfolded the family’s saga.

Twenty minutes later, the prayer ended, and so did the daydream. I’d step out of the broadcast room and head back to class. I never knew why that scene came to me, and eventually I forgot about it.

Decades later, as I rewrote Ash in Our Bones, the memory resurfaced. I had already chosen the Telling as the saga's new form. I hadn't planned on that childhood memory becoming the seed for the saga's structure. Yet somehow, the memory and the saga found each other.

Tellings were performances. How can a book become a Telling?

Ancient Tellings weren't simply meant to tell a story. 

They sought to move the heart. 

I wanted our family's saga to do the same.

Like an ancient Gathin, ONE WHO CAME BEFORE begins by welcoming you into a special place and time.

He prepares you emotionally for what you are about to hear through ceremonies that mark important moments along the way.

He weds spoken word to song, anchoring his words deep in your heart.

He creates drama through visual poetry—images that engage in dialogue with both you and one another.

He enriches the saga with music the way ancients did.

And he weaves history with allegory to reveal the story’s fuller psychological and spiritual dimensions.

And when the journey is over, his final words become a gift—an inheritance entrusted to the next generation.

You say the saga is enriched with music. How can a book carry music?

Ancient Tellings weren't just spoken; they were sung. Their emotional power came from simple five-note melodies that stayed with listeners long after nightfall. I wanted our saga to have that same power.

Instead of musical notes, however, I chose recurring ideas. Together they form two five-tone "melodies" that weave their way through the saga from beginning to end. They are the threads that shape its allegorical tapestry. They represent the struggle that runs throughout our history. Sometimes they move together. Sometimes they oppose one another. As the story unfolds, so do they.

You don't need to know anything about music to experience them. In fact, you don't even need to know they're there. If you read the saga carefully, allow yourself to become part of the story, and the story to become part of you, you've already experienced the music.

And if, after finishing the journey, you're curious about how those melodies were woven into the saga, you'll find additional clues in the companion poem Angara and Aruddha: The Space in Between.

Why do families tell stories?

Not simply to preserve the past. 

Families tell stories to understand who they are. 

They tell stories to pass on their deepest values, make sense of hardship, celebrate courage, and prepare each generation for the challenges it will one day face.

The ancient Tellings sought not merely to inform but to inspire and transform. That is my hope for our family's Telling as well.

If, by the end of the journey, you feel a better understanding of who you are, and discover within yourself some of the same strengths that carried our ancestors through their greatest challenges, then this Telling will have fulfilled its purpose.

You have called the Telling "a song for a hero—for you." Do you really mean that?

I do.

The ancient Gathas celebrated heroes. 

Our seven Gathas do the same. 

Their hero is you.

The saga begins as the story of a people. As it unfolds, you’ll understand why it speaks to your own journey. I'll leave it at that for now. I don't want to spoil the journey.

The Words Behind the Telling 

If this page has piqued your curiosity, you may enjoy looking up a few of the original Sanskrit terms behind the English words I've used to keep the story easy to read. These terms come from the tradition of Akhyana—the ancient Indian music theatre.

• Telling — Ākhyāna (आख्यान), literally

• Gathin — Gāthin (गाथिन्)

• Gatha — Gāthā (गाथा)

• Royal charioteer-poet — Sūta (सूत)

• Five-note melody — Audava (औडव)

— Welcome to the Telling.