Stories that demand to be told | #23
"The massage was also not as weird as I thought it would be. It turned out that I could experience bare-body touching outside intimacy."
This is the 23rd edition of Stories that demand to be told, a curated spread of the most evocative, resonant, real stories. Welcome to Ochre Sky Stories, a home for writers from the Ochre Sky Workshops, facilitated by
and .
1. What do you do all day? by
As I began to give away things, it felt like my mind began to clear up. I started getting new ideas. I decided to start working out and though weight is harder to shed than possessions, I began to move my body in ways I had never imagined. I have never resisted anything more in my life than exercise. I sometimes lie to my trainer about my warm-ups and during my work-out I think of the excuses I will make about not sticking to her nutritional recommendations. I began to go to the vegetable market in a bid to complete my daily step count. I look for interesting podcasts that will help me survive the dread of going to the gym and moving alongside strangers who, I fear, look at me and laugh, because I truly believe I matter that much and they have all the time in the world to do so.
No, dear reader, there is no scope for sitting on most days. I am slow at things and the precious time I get alone at home is stretched thin between chores and needs. Fun is squeezed in between cooking and laundry. Yes, I am counting naps as a fun activity. And truth be told, I have never been as active as I am today. The house won’t let me sit!
2. Courage is Silence by
I ask her if she is happy. She says yes, of course she is happy. “But Maa…!” She says Baba is a good man. He has such a good job. He is kind. He is generous. Everyone loves him. She has two lovely children. “But Maa…!” A few more years pass, and we start college. My mother teaches us to find joy in the smallest of things – in the tiny but unspeakably beautiful wildflowers that grow with the grass. In the way the stars shine in the night-sky. In a hot cup of tea at the end of a long day. She teaches us that hope is something we must find in our own hearts. That loving your family often involves great sacrifice.
Years later, she does a correspondence course in journalism. She completes her assignments in the kitchen because her mother-in-law will not let her keep the light on in the living room late at night. Then one day, my mother has her long hair cut short. She keeps her sarees aside and starts wearing salwar suits. She gets a job teaching English to foreign students. She bakes cakes and gives some to the local bakery for sale - just for fun!!
3. Navigating workplace womanhood by Priya Sunil
In a networking event recently, a young girl gathered the courage to ask a very famous woman corporate leader, “Ma’am you are such an inspiration to many young girls like us. How do you think your style of leadership as a woman is different from the men around you and how do we learn to grow more like you?”
“Leadership is a skill” she said “gender has nothing to do with leadership. Focus on your career and work hard and don’t worry about being a woman leader”. That young girl sat down, totally deflated by this response. In that one statement, this person has ignored the realities of lakhs of women who struggle to balance life and work, who do not come from the same place of privilege that she potentially came from, those who do not have a strong support system to push through.
Another CHRO of a big company told me in a 1:1 with her “Once you have a seat at the table, it is your responsibility to have the voice. Don’t let it go waste.” Great advice, finding that voice takes years, the right mentorship, access to a great network of people and the right opportunities. It’s hard finding a voice when you have been silenced for so long.
4. The First Massage by
I suppose it was a testament to her professionalism that she didn’t break character but even so, every flaw in my body became magnified. I had to wear a baggy translucent diaper as a woman who thought I was a moron massaged me. She left the room for a second time and I changed into the damn thing. Before she came back, I was on my stomach, my face buried in my arms and into the canvas.
For the first five minutes, I held onto shame and embarrassment. And then, I’m not sure how, but it dissipated. Maybe because I had tried to look at the brighter side. Hey, at least I didn’t actually put the baggy diaper on my head in front of her, right? I had just asked. It had looked like a shower cap. Although come to think of it, shower caps don’t usually have two large holes.
The massage was also not as weird as I thought it would be. It turned out that I could experience bare-body touching outside intimacy. The body knows that massage touching is different. And once I told myself that it was alright to be thought of as a moron, I began to relax. That lasted until I learned that according to deep-tissue lore, your bum is a part of your legs.
5. I begin at the end by
I began with a choice: Fake Crocs slippers or Fake Nike shoes. A walk where you don’t have an end in mind is not to be taken lightly. But I did not put too much thought into it and slipped on the Crocs. A video I recently watched explained to me the concept of mindfulness. As a young girl on my screen explained, it was to be mindful of everything - the sights, the sounds, the smells, the touches. Taking her up on her words made me feel a new world open for me. This is a world where the thick bristles on the cheap Ikea carpet tingle inside me like the grass in a beloved park used to. A world where touching the plants' leaves reminds me of a thin blanket that my sister could not sleep without when she was young. A world where I can feel my feet burning inside the cheap Crocs after walking a kilometre.
I began with another choice: To plug in my earphones or not. True mindfulness dictates that I leave behind my earphones at home. To be fully present, I need to hear my present. But baby steps. Also, the newest story in Le Var Burton’s short story podcast sounds interesting. It is about a woman's struggle to understand why her father has begun to teleport spontaneously. As a compromise for the mindfulness dilemma, I opt to listen to the podcast at 1x speed. I will listen to the silences between the words, and I will listen to the spaces between the sentences.
6. A Packet of Poppins by
I didn't much mind, but I did blow at a lot of eyelashes, whooshing and wishing That my mother, always too busy drinking tea, Would surprise me By slipping in something unlike her, something not salty, something sweet. A few Kismi toffees, or a packet of Poppins, maybe? That's why when I tucked in my baby-girl's tiffin — 'paranthas' too like generational trauma — into her tiny little backpack
7. Love doesn't know its way home by
“I don’t know who or what this marriage is but it better not come between my wife and me,” a friend had once written to me.
Marriage is an accident-prone adventure. It gets hijacked, kidnapped, derailed, distracted and exhausted. Marriage can become a pile of resentments.
Togetherness is a venue. We seek it for respite. For nurturing and rest. We go there to practise fighting. It’s a boxing ring. Boxing is a sport, remember. We play at boxing to be better prepared for the rest of the world. We analyse our strengths, compensate for weaknesses. But don’t always stay there. Go away also. Be independent. Don’t expect it to work all the time. It is lazy and busy and easily distracted. Just like the lovers in it.
And then there are children. Children are like a JCB machine. They will wreck your marriage and play with the debris. If they don’t come along and create utter chaos, something else always does. If nothing else shakes us up, it is quite likely that we will start feeling itchy and draw blood ourselves.
8. Prayer by
My intestines My knees My thirst The nib of my favourite fountain pen Bulbuls eating fruit in my balcony The narrowness of my childhood home The soap bubbles of memory Pastries falling asleep in their box on the way home
Discover the transformative power of personal writing with Natasha Badhwar
and Raju Tai at Ochre Sky Stories Memoir Workshop.
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Thank you, Raju and Natasha. ❤️🤗
🤗🤗🩵🩵🥰🥰🙏🙏🙏 And yay!!!😆😆