There is a storytelling competition going on across the world. Not in schools. Not in literary festivals. Not even in bookstores. This one is far more exciting.

Because, the prize is total destruction.

The contestants are not authors like me, sitting at desks with cups of coffee beside them. They are politicians standing on platforms, waving their hands dramatically while thousands applaud.

And what stories they tell!

As a child, I loved fiction. Cowboys always arrived just in time. Detectives solved impossible mysteries. Heroes jumped from moving trains and survived. Villains laughed wickedly before explaining their evil plans.

I thought it was all make believe.

Then I grew up and switched on the television.

Suddenly I realised fiction had escaped from books and entered public life. Every day somebody with supposedly 56 inches of chest, or a bald head tells us inflation is under control while families stare at grocery bills in disbelief. Or we are told corruption has been conquered while corruption merely changes its clothes and continues its work. They tell us farmers are prosperous while farmers march in protest. They tell us the world envies us, fears us, admires us, while we are slowly being mocked for our behaviour.

The stories become grander and grander. Dragons have been replaced by opposition parties. Knights on white horses have become leaders in spotless white kurtas.

The kingdoms remain the same. Only the costumes have changed.

And we the audience, meanwhile, sit spellbound.

In the old days, when we finished reading a novel, we shut the book and returned to reality. We knew Sherlock Holmes lived in a story. We knew Tarzan would not swing into our living room. We understood the difference between imagination and truth.

Today that distinction seems to have disappeared.

The storyteller tells a tale.

And soon the audience begins believing it.

Then comes the dangerous moment.

The story climbs off the page. It walks out of the television. It enters our minds. And once it settles there, facts become unwelcome guests.

A lie repeated often enough begins demanding the same respect as truth. That is when stories become weapons. Families quarrel over them. Friends stop speaking to one another because of them. Communities divide because of them. Nations fight because of them.

All because somebody told a good story.

The saddest part is that real authors spend years writing books that entertain, inspire, educate, and make us think. Their stories usually end when the last page is turned.

The new storytellers are different. Their stories do not end. They continue long after the applause has faded. And if enough people believe them, the prize is awarded.

Not a trophy. Not a medal. But the destruction of everything we once held valuable.

Perhaps that is why the wisest thing you and I can do today is what every good reader has always done.

As you enjoy the story, keep remembering, and reminding yourself, it is fiction…!

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