He was a storyteller. For he knew his listeners consisted not only of those who were thoroughly learned but also those who were accorded little or no privileges for formal education. But there was one way in which he could communicate such that both the learned and the illiterate would be able to grasp his message – stories. He believed in the power of stories. So he told them many stories about everything relevant to their lives. He used objects and roles that they could readily observe around them.

How they loved his stories. They would sit in humungous crowds, in the heat of the day, just to listen to him because all their lives nobody had ever told stories so powerfully. The strange thing was that his stories seemed to summon a kind of a hunger from within them that almost “obligated” them to desire to keep following him everywhere he went. They craved his stories.

Perhaps it was because these stories were stories of themselves. He was telling them stories about themselves. It was as if he was taking each and every one of those people in the multitudes and giving them beautiful roles in these stories he was telling. And they simply had to know how the next story was going to unfold, for in listening to these stories, they were also finding themselves. His stories satisfied a deep hunger they were experiencing.

The young and the old, they all loved him. Even the little children loved his stories. As he told them tales about life, he also asked them questions which they answered very well. They understood these stories, you see. Strangely, it was the learned people – the thoroughly educated and cognitively esteemed – who often failed to understand these stories the way they were meant to be understood. But these stories never failed to engage the “foolish”.