I have always collected stories.
Not the triumphant kind. Not the neat, redemptive arcs that resolve themselves into something reassuring. I seem to gather the sad ones—the stories of vulnerable people, of quiet suffering, of lives suspended in difficult in-betweens.
I don’t seek them out with any sense of pleasure. There is no satisfaction in someone else’s pain, no secret relief that their life is harder than mine. That’s not it.
If anything, I grew up believing the opposite—that noticing suffering was a kind of virtue.
I was an idealistic child. The sort who instinctively sided with the underdog, who believed fairness mattered, who thought the world could—and should—be better. That instinct shaped my choices.
Looking back, I can trace this habit to my childhood dinner table.
We told stories.
Not about ourselves, necessarily—but about others. Someone’s misfortune. Someone’s hardship. Someone’s bad turn in life. These stories were shared, examined, discussed. They became a kind of social currency—a way of making sense of the world, perhaps even a way of expressing empathy.
My parents were, in many ways, deeply compassionate people. They helped others within their means. They treated people with dignity. They showed kindness not as performance, but as practice.
They walked the talk.
But somewhere along the way, I absorbed a quieter lesson: talking about suffering was, meaningful.
That bearing witness—retelling, reflecting—was a form of engagement.
In college, I flirted with the idea of becoming an activist. I joined the rural development cell. I imagined a life that pushed against systems, that questioned norms.
But there were boundaries—spoken and unspoken.
Would my father have accepted a life that veered too far from the expected path of stability, marriage, children? Probably not. Activism, in its rawest form, belonged to “someone else.” We could admire it. We could discuss it. But living it was another matter.
So I stayed where I was—talking about inequality, about injustice, about how things should be different.
Without quite knowing how to make them so.
After marriage, something shifted.
My husband did not like sad stories.
He avoided films with unhappy endings. He did not want to dwell on real-life misery. And so, our conversations adjusted. Dinner tables became lighter, safer. We spoke about pleasant things. We chose sitcoms, upbeat podcasts, romantic comedies.
We curated a life that, for the most part, avoided prolonged engagement with discomfort.
However, he wholeheartedly supported my decision to study law. That decision has helped me choose a meaningful, socially conscious path.
It has given me freedom.
Freedom to act, to engage, to step into harder spaces.
So, while I may not have gone to protests, I have not stayed adjacent to change, but I am fully inside it in my role managing MCIS.
Even today, the stories from childhood have never left me. With my mother and my sisters, they remain central. If one of us hears something—a difficult story, a troubling situation—we share it and act on it to the extent we can.
Today, in London, visiting my daughter, my life’s work at MCIS took new meaning as I heard three stories of distress, situations MCIS lends a supporting hand to in Canada connecting people in meaningful ways so the vulnerable can seek redress.
These stories of “immigrant” distress came from a Hindu priest I visit on Sundays. He lives in a homeless shelter in London and manages a small temple. I bring him food; He shares what he sees and we have a quiet exchange.
Today, there were three stories.
The first was about a young man staying temporarily in the temple. He had come to the UK on a study permit, completed his education, and then experienced a psychotic break. He has schizophrenia now. He cannot work. He has a visa, but no life he can meaningfully inhabit with no organizational or community support.
His family is in Sri Lanka—his mother and sisters—watching him from afar, unable to comprehend from a distance, his circumstance. So he sits. In a small room.
Sleeping. Waiting. Existing between systems. Frozen in time.
The second story was about a couple who had overstayed their visit visa.
Eighteen years ago.
They are still here—without status in menial jobs at a butcher’s, unable to leave. They have a child in India, raised entirely by grandparents. That child is now eighteen.
They have never held him since he was born.
They have watched him grow up through screens.
And now, after nearly two decades, they want to bring him to the UK on a study permit—so they can finally meet their own child. They don’t know where to turn for help, so they come to the temple to pray and seek the priest’s advice!
It is difficult to know where to place judgment in a story like this.
What does sacrifice look like?
What does abandonment look like?
And when do the two become indistinguishable?
The third story was about a woman in her mid-sixties. She endured an abusive marriage since her youth—arriving in London only to be beaten, controlled, diminished. No English, no confidence. She raised two sons.
Her husband died. The house was left to the sons.
And they turned her out.
She now lives in a homeless shelter—depressed, exhausted, untethered from the very life she built.v she too seeks refuge at the temple.
I came home carrying these stories. Knowing that MCIS interpreters navigate these difficult spaces in Canada. They are true heroes and their personal stories of resilience have also inspired me. There is so much more to do!
I am grateful my parents set me on this path of collecting stories to instil in me a strong sense of social responsibility
Because stories, especially the sad ones, have a strange power.
They can move us into action.
