Cartoon by Uttara Sukumar, Year 2000 (or so)
It is Oscar night and although I am indifferent to award shows, I love the movies and love a good story. But the best kind are the ones I share in person. Both my parents were great at sharing them. And more than myths and fables from ancient Hindu epics, we grew up listening to family stories. Amma's always had a feminist theme about oppressed women's subversive acts in the little village of Sattanadapuram, Tanjore, where she grew up. There was always a moral about showing courage and forbearance to triumph in the end. It featured women who slaved at home making and selling pappads while their husbands squandered away their manhood in their mistress' homes. Amma never minced her words. She embellished for effect, delivered with punchlines often reducing us to tears and rousing our passion to take arms in solidarity with women-kind. No story was too adult for us. I knew about sexual molestation of widows in joint families and the taboo topic of marital rape early in my teens.
Appa on the other hand had goofy stories which had us in splits. I really could not get enough of his sleepwalking misadventures, his near drowning experiences and his embarrassment over emoting as heroes did in the movies, when he was asked to sing film songs in public. There were always tales about men who over-ate at weddings, uncles who failed exams and went to great lengths to hide the fact at home only to have some busybody break the news in front of all and sundry, sibling ribbing and rivalry. They were coming of age stories all light-hearted and entertaining.
My parents made me realize the power of the narrative and I have always used it to illustrate a point when interacting one on one or when making presentations. Even when confronted with a problem I ask myself this question "I wonder how this story will end?" No wonder I loved my solo practice in law when I had it. I would invite people into my life to share great stories with me. And I was actually paid to listen. Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction got it right. You could not make up some of the real life experiences people shared with an unflinching straight face. A particularly poignant one was from a blind woman who was accused of uttering death threats to her blind partner on the phone after he changed his mind about marrying her following a hysterectomy that she underwent on his bidding!
Since Uttara spent all her summers in India, till she turned 16, she enjoyed her grandparents' stories. I carried on that tradition at home so much so that even today when we cuddle in our "mommy- daughter" moments she will bid me with " Amma kadhai chollu" ( Amma tell me a story). When she catches me embellishing for effect, she will roll her eyes in disbelief but not stop listening with rapt attention. I am so glad that storytelling was not considered gossip and banished from our home for being in poor taste. I have to admit that it gave us license to wag our tongues and kept us immensely curious about everything and everyone around us. We were always on the prowl for a good story.
Sadly that wonderful tradition of plain old listening to stories for fun has been lost due to the distractions from electronic devices. Staring at our hand helds, we just do not make eye contact and share tales from our heart and mind that excite, entertain or exhilarate us.
Let's park our devices, kindle our curiosity about everything and everyone around us, for a short while everyday, so the people we interact with and love, also bear witness to life as we see it through our utterances!
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