Stories that demand to be told | #46

You don't have to summit to be transformed. You just have to walk long enough to meet yourself. And when you do, the question is no longer, "What can I conquer?" It becomes, "What can I let melt?"

This is the 46th 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

Natasha Badhwar

and

Raju Tai

.

Writers writing the Rhythm of their Stories

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1. Flawed God by

Sanobar Sabah

A framed picture lies on my husband’s bedside table.
It’s from the day we welcomed our second-born into our lives.
My first-born, a chubby five-year-old, cradles his baby sister in his arms.

Suna hai
maa ke pairon ke neeche jannat hoti hai...

Suna hai
Khuda har jagah maujood nahin ho sakta tha —
toh usne maa banayi.

Suna hai
maa woh ghana ped hai
jiski chhaon mein bachpan nikharta hai.

Magar...
jab wahi maa
patjharr mein hi uljhi rahey —
toh uske bachche
dhoop ko hi chaon samajh lete hain.

I’m the mother who gets triggered seeing her son’s childhood pictures.
I am that flawed God.

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2. when I don't know where to put the love by

Suhani

People that were once everything and now are a memory Google photos brings up. Or perhaps some fuzzy moments that you didn’t know you’d miss in the future. Like the random party you had in your flat for 3 course mates you met far too late in university, who brought into that night loud laughs and the most absurd drunk conversations. Or maybe all the walks to and fro the grocery store, hiding from the winter, hoping for the clouds to open up. Smoke breaks outside our flat. Reaching and nodding at the doorman, some familiarity. Summers that were spent lying on the marble floor, the coolth emanating through the ground while your forehead sweated. A week in the hills as a confused pre-teen, trips to the tea garden where everything seemed sorted out, you just had to follow along.

Pushing the love away only brings back the memory of it.

Agonising over every detail of a meaningless interaction, overthinking the way you folded your hands or how your hair flew into your lip gloss, the love flies away covered in a desperate larva of hopelessness. Out of the jumbled up web of knots and mixed feelings, comes out a disfigured form of love. One that you never knew existed. Something unholy and perhaps wrong, a discoloured version of what we think love is. Not pink or candy red anymore, it comes out in different shades of grey. Mucky and ugly, but the love is still there, in all its twisted glory. Born out of casual dating and soul sucking loneliness, a newfound romance; between you and your ideal self.

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3. UNFROZEN (Part 2): The Journey from Glaciers to Streams by

Ajay Kelkar

Every glacier eventually returns to water, finding new paths down mountainsides to nourish valleys below. Our frozen selves follow similar patterns of transformation.

Annapurna didn't give me new answers. She gave me something more vital: the warmth that allowed the thaw to start, the slow melt that nourished me by disrupting my "status quo," showing me the cracks and letting discomfort be the soil where something softer could take root.

The thaw is never sudden. It comes in small bursts and a slow, relentless melt.

You don't have to summit to be transformed. You just have to walk long enough to meet yourself.

And when you do, the question is no longer, "What can I conquer?" It becomes, "What can I let melt?"

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4. Dichotomy by

Samira

We don’t like extremes - too happy, too sad, too angry, too giggly - it’s all too much. We are meant to exist in moderation. Anything else makes others uncomfortable. Because we are taught to keep what we feel inside and never let it show. Because a woman’s job is to remain calm, collected and pleasant at all times. Any other kind of behaviour is unacceptable.

If you have tried to fight it, as I have, you know that you have been slotted into a category. The woman who is ‘difficult’ to work with. The friend who is ‘brutally honest.’ The girlfriend who is ‘too free’ for her own good. The wife who is ‘too lazy’ to look after guests. The daughter who has not been ‘brought up’ properly.

You can’t win here. But you can split into two.

The face that you show everyone. And the face that hides beneath.

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5. Coorg: Want Coffee, Will Travel by

Sharmada

I was pointed to a shop that advertised selling coffee, opposite what resembled the ghost of a petrol station. I decided to take my chances and walk into Laxmiganesh Rice Mill and Spice House.

A unique mix of smells - freshly ground coffee and other spices - hit me first. Raju’s huge smile, a second later. Madhu had stopped by a few hours earlier to inform him of my impending visit. When I insisted on the 70-30 ratio, he mocked my sincerity by asking whether I’d be okay if it was 80-20 or 65-35. But he knew Madhu would hold him accountable. I purchased multiple kilograms for my family without considering whether my backpack could accommodate them. When I handed over a 2000 rupee note to pay, Raju stared at me in disbelief. I wondered if I accidentally handed him a fake note.

Raju hadn’t seen the magenta spectacle before – it had been in circulation only for a year. He stepped out of his store and asked passers-by for change. Soon other store owners and passers-by joined him in looking at the note and exclaiming utter fascination. From the girl who came to Coorg to buy coffee, I became the girl with the 2000 rupee note.

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6. Let's ban... by

Chitra Kalyani

Let’s ban thinking. Whatever good came of it? All good that came, has come of inspiration and dreaming. Let’s daydream instead. Let clouds float in and out of our heads. Let them rain instead of us tearing. Let’s externalise all our emotions, like we do in poetry.

Let’s ban everything that is not poetry. Prose is too dull, too tedious. Why should we ever have to read long sentences that always follow a straight line to the next? Let’s share poetry like grace over breakfast, over lunch, over dinner. Let it be thankful like Mary Oliver’s poetry, touched by God and grace and gentleness.

Let’s ban boredom. Let’s reinvent writing, drawing, painting, playing, talking, meeting, and even sleeping. Let’s find things to do with this unlimited limited time.

And let’s ban banning. Who should ever have say as to what should not exist in this wide and awe-inspiring universe?

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7. ‘I am a Muslim, a Hindu, and an Indian' by

Natasha Badhwar

I have cried a lot, but not typed enough. I have yet to write the stories that have hit me the hardest in my gut.

There is a way to sublimate my personal distress into strength and power; I know that. There is a way to out-walk the depression that clings to me like a weight around my ankles, slowing me down, holding me back. I don’t have enough words to describe horror, pain, outrage. But I must break through the wall of my own inarticulateness.

‘Empathy is first and foremost an act of imagination,’ Harsh Mander often reiterates. Compassion is an integral part of human nature but our privileged upbringing trains us not to care. Can we unlearn the apathy that we have internalized.

Everywhere we travel, we almost always find ourselves addressing community gatherings. Every time I come face to face with the discomfort of breaking my own silence, I find that I don’t have to think too hard to frame sentences. The connections are already there, I just have to step out of my own way and let the words flow. The boundaries are artificial. There is power in reaching out.

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8. People Pleasers Unite by

Raju Tai

Offer her love. She was born when someone hurt you. When you vowed, ‘I’ll never hurt anybody’. Tell her it’s impossible to not hurt people. Especially if you want to do the right thing.

Joke about her with your friends. Swap stories about the crazy shit she made you do.

Notice her body language in yours. Are you crouching, shrinking, fake-smiling? Unclench and see the fawning dissipate.

Remember the energy it takes to please the forever disappointed.

Do nothing. It unsettles her because you can always do something for someone. But nothing is often the best thing you can do for others and yourself.

Remind her: you are also one of the people to be pleased. Your pleasure is the ultimate antidote.

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Join us this May, for The Rhythm of our Stories — a creative writing workshop presented by Natasha Badhwar, and facilitated by Raju Tai and Vimal Chitra.