“Listening is an Act of Love”

One of the most precious memories I have of my grandfather is a tape with his voice recorded on it. On it, he was telling us, my brother (2) and me (4), stories like he would every night during the summer and we were listening in rapt attention.  He was the perfect rocking chair grandfather and a truly gifted story-teller because he ensured we stayed out of trouble by being perched on his knee  – one brat on each, our feet dangling. He told us stories of epics, folklore and also of his growing years  and how he became the head of the family at age 14.  After his passing, this heirloom is the memory of him I hold most dear.

That is why I feel in love with StoryCorps and its work. An American nonprofit, it records, archives and shares one-on-one conversations between family members, or two people who hold their relationship with eachother very close to their heart

The idea is simple enough, and yet so powerful. Conversations on the things that matter. Conversations between parent and child on how it was growing up in their times; on raising children with special abilities;immigrants talking about their first experiences in a new country; remembering departed relatives. Each of their stories are engrossing, compelling, inspiring, healing. What I liked in particular were their story-preserving initiatives for persons with memory loss, survivors of the 9/11 tragedy and the voices of different ethnic communities, bringing people together, creating bonds that provide support and solace.

I think it works because, the world over, we are all suckers for an honest story that is told straight from the heart.  It helps people connect with their past and with the person beyond the nature of the relationship that defines them. There’s more to them than what you’ve experienced together. Recording and saving stories for posterity is a treasure that nothing can replicate.  I loved the idea because it reminds you that the small things are the most important in a relationship. It opens your heart and it celebrates the everyday.

They’ve recently started animating their stories that are beautifully done. I’m sharing some of my favourites here, since I don’t know how to link the individual audio pieces.

The Human Voice

An oral historian laments the loss of the human voice and shares his hope for the future. I love the expression and the gravely quality of his voice. I can almost imagine him in his jacket with elbow patches and sitting in a Martin Crane-like arm chair.

“Q and A”

The maturity of this child is amazing. It sounds like two adults are talking to eachother.

Dannie and Annie

It’s beautiful. I have no words.

PS: I’m not promoting StoryCorps, just sharing what I feel is a beautiful idea.

Fear

I’m pasting below something that I had written in May 2008.
The details of this day are still vivid in my memory, and the issue as relevant today.

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To kick-start my ‘break from work’, I went on a short holiday to a hill-town (HT) in Karnataka with Girl. (Girl, a friend from the land of cheese and wine who had come down for a couple of weeks, is a born traveler and has spent four months living on her own in Delhi.)

Since we wanted to end our tiring day in HT with a good meal that we wouldn’t get at our budget hotel, we decided to go to a restaurant which was outside the city. So we set off in a rickshaw at about 9:15 pm but not before being warned that, “the night-time isn’t safe for ladies.”

Hardly had we spent 10 minutes in the rickshaw, than we had stopped twice – first for an LPG refill and the second time for the driver to buy beedies. HT is a pretty, but small and sleepy town that switches off its lights and turns in almost immediately after nightfall; and the streets outside the town centre display no sign of habitation and are not lit by municipal lighting. As the rickshaw noisily spluttered away from the main town area, driving in the pitch dark, on unknown roads, in a strange city, through jungle foliage it struck me how I had no local emergency numbers and how nobody would have heard a cry for help. It was then that an uneasy feeling crept in. An uneasiness that slowly gave in to fear. Not piercing, white panic. But a dull, rhythmic, swelling feeling that stays stubbornly at the pit of your stomach.

I said nothing at first. But my feeling was palpable so I told Girl that we should turn around and head back. She calmly reassured me that the restaurant was outside town, as we were told when we had called ahead, the distance was not as much as it seemed, and that the rickshaw driver knew what he was doing. Since she was the foreigner and I was the native, I was less inclined to believe her than to trust my instincts. I don’t know if hunger and fatigue had clouded my judgement, but something made me believe her, and press on. Ten minutes later we saw the restaurant lights. I set free the breath that I had been holding almost forever and my pounding heart slowly came back to beating normally. Of course the dinner was good and our healthy banter resumed but my appetite was gone. We took a cab back to the hotel but I went to bed restless and disturbed.

That experience really opened my eyes on so many levels. I had chosen to follow someone else’s gut feel over my own. Someone I was supposed to protect. And my instincts were wrong!! I had imagined all sorts of situations, all of them unpleasant, and it turned out that I was afraid for nothing. It wasn’t a big issue afterall. I was glad that Girl remained quiet and calm. She confessed to me later  that my worrying made her afraid too, but chose not to let it overwhelm her. She was not naïve about what could have happened. Given the colour of her skin, she has had her brush with the lecherous and greedy rickshawalla types when she was in Delhi.

But I couldn’t help wondering when fear is justified and legitimate, and when it is irrational and paralyzing? If I had been alone, I would have turned back. Never mind the biscuits for dinner; or still, not ventured out at all in the first place. Were the seeds of fear sown when we were warned that it was ‘unsafe for ladies’, or much earlier in our lives? When each horrific story that you read in the media or through hearsay that reinforces the barriers in your mind. “Women must not go out unaccompanied after a certain hour”, “Women can dress provocatively but at their own risk”, “Foreign women are an easy target”. There is some truth to some of it. (That we choose to accept it or abide by it is another issue.) But when does being aware of crippling reality become empowering, because it can keep you out of danger, and when does it completely curb your freedom because you give up the chance to have a little fun, live life a little, in the fear of what might happen? Where do you draw the line? With experience, maybe but it takes only one error in judgement, one wrong decision. Does it have to do with the fact that we live in India and are brought up by Indians?

I don’t know. And am still looking for answers.

L for Bombay, L for Love

A friend once asked why, every time I speak of Mumbai or Bombay, my eyes light up and a broad smile appears on my face. He reminded me of the squalour, the humidity and the crowds as a few reasons why he, and most people, can never imagine calling it home. And it got me thinking about why I love this city so much. For all the while that I lived there, (thirteen months) I was never quite able to put a finger on it. Now in Bangalore, and with the benefit of hindsight, I think I might have the answer.

One scene, (that I had read about online after 26/11 and don’t remember where), captures the spirit of the city perfectly. A morning local train that is spilling commuters from either side sounds its horn and is slowly taking off from the platform, just as a person runs towards the train to catch it. A hand stretches out from the nearest compartment, the running person gratefully grabs it and clumsily scrambles in, as the train, gathering speed, leaves the platform behind. To me, that exemplified the spirit of the Bombay perfectly – despite being a city that is bursting at the seams, it still stretches a friendly arm out to welcome more.

It was a somewhat similar greeting I received when I moved to Mumbai. After many particularly difficult months in Bangalore both personally and professionally, I decided to move to another city for a change of perspective. And Bombay seems like the only other city I could call home. Although not my first time in the city, within weeks, I felt comfortable enough to call it home. Roommate and Colleague are largely to thank for that. In them I found kindred spirits, and now lifetime friends, who gave me the space to be myself; much like the city does too. What turned out to be a short professional project turned into a more long-term arrangement and I developed a routine to flow alongside the million little streams of people working to make an honest living that are the engines that power this metropolis – making our way from suburb to town in the morning and the reverse in the evenings.

The city that never sleeps had me, the slumber queen, up at the crack of dawn (..err..that’s 7:30 am for those new to su-land) to make the journey from the suburbs to Churchgate to be in time for work. I’d function will less than six hours of sleep a day, was almost always on an adrenaline high, ready for something new even in the wee hours of the morning. I’d have a spring in my step and despite some pretty dark moments (that include the horrific 26/11 terror attack) I always found that my moods swung from happy to content to mildly euphoric.

I did not experience this in any other city that I’ve lived in. It was hard to explain why, why the parts added up to something more beautiful than the whole. I realised it was because the city made me feel like I was in love, even though I wasn’t – when anything is possible, unfortunate things become more bearable, and where you will always find a spark of hope amidst the despair if you look hard enough.

What added to my lovely memories of the city was the fact that I, in fact, did fall in love in Bombay. With Geek, I did all the cliched things that lovers do in Bombay and filled my heart with warmth and memories to last me a lifetime – watching the sunset at Bandstand without noticing the time go by, midnight trips to the airport in the pouring rain to wait for his arriving flight, telling made-up stories at work so that we could spend precious moments together, pani-puri at Elco, the drive from the station to Yari road, Bachelors and Naturals ice cream, the countless sea-food restaurants, the Bandra-Worli sea link….

Memories of the first few months with Geek and memories of Bombay seem to fuse into each other, not knowing where one starts and the other ends, ensuring that nothing can dislodge the association between Love and Bombay in my mind.