The other day, I stumbled across an old video (1 January 2018) of S.S. Rajamouli — the brilliant filmmaker behind Baahubali and RRR — speaking from the heart about storytelling. And something he said stayed with me since, and I think it’s profound.

Here’s what he said:

Sabu Cyril is my production designer. He is a brilliant man. He is a very well-read man. He was telling me the story of the storytelling — how did it emerge?

So when the men were still hunters and gatherers, it was a very difficult life. You are going out every day, you don’t know what are the dangers you are going to face. You might die, you might lose your hand or leg or eye, or whatever. It’s a very difficult life, living with wild animals, getting food and bringing back food.

At the end of the day, the men used to sit around a fire and stare into the fire. They were called fire-starers because they were sitting in. And after some time, someone would start telling an incident or a story or something, which would make them forget their real life for a moment. It might be funny, it might be sad, it might be emotional. Whatever it was, they would narrate incidents that made them forget their real life — which would give them immense energy to carry forward with their life.

And today it is no different. Whether you are a doctor, a reviewer, a film director, a rickshaw puller, a lawyer… you are facing a very hard life. You don’t know what tomorrow is going to be. At the end of the day, you need to sit and relax. You need to come back out of the real life and go into a different life… which will give you immense energy to go forward.

That is the duty of a storyteller — to make people move away from their real life for a moment. Each of us have a different way of doing it. We might make a mass masala movie, make Salman Khan dance. You can make an intelligent movie which makes them think — the point is to take them away from their real life. So you decide whether it’s a life-saving job or not.

We all need stories. Whether it was a tough day, a big decision, or just the weight of everything. Sometimes the stories give us strength, if not a solution. Something to lift us out of the grind of “real life,” even if only for a while, and remind me there’s beauty, imagination, and hope.

This video reframed how I look at movies, books, and even casual conversations. Storytelling isn’t escape — it’s restoration.

So when Rajamouli says, “You decide whether it’s a life-saving job or not,” I know the answer. Yes, absolutely.

Source: The Directors Roundtable 2017 with Rajeev Masand, CNBC TV18.