Stories that demand to be told | #49
Efficiency is a great virtue, yet we need something more to feel fulfilled. We need connection. Connection to the self, first. This is an essential ingredient of leadership.
This is the 49th 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. Mothers, memories and morkuzhambu by
The arrogance and naivety of youth is a double-edged sword that believes that life is long, bad things only happen to other people, that we have all the time in the world.
Was she the only one who knew how to make it? No. Was she the best at making it? To be honest, I’m now ashamed to admit that I don’t remember her cooking anymore. My Amma or even my (now) go-to websites for recipes will probably just do fine and give the same results. It’s hardly about the recipe and entirely about the recipe-keeper.
There is a custom shape of grief attached to each recipe-keeper, secret-holder, joy-bringer, co-conspirator, joke-teller, cheerleader…
2. War. by
There are two kinds of people in the world. Smart people and foolish people.
Smart people are realistic; they understand the world. Smart people want war. Foolish people are unrealistic and are anti-war. Smart people say we must go to war after a terror attack.
Why? So that terrorists or the state sponsoring them don't dare to do it again. So that they understand: if you kill one of ours, we will kill four of yours.
Each time, smart people announce the beginning of history.
3. The Accidental Entrepreneur by
The wind was cold and steady, and the night sky made me gasp. It was dark, with thousands of stars splashed across it. The cold wrapped around me, sharp and unforgiving, but my gaze was fixed on the brilliant expanse of the Milky Way.
Though I was exhausted, something else was bothering me—a different kind of exhaustion, a weariness I had carried long before this trek.
I had spent decades climbing—first the corporate ladder, then in the arc of my ambitions—titles, promotions, success. I had been hungry for it all and had gotten much of it. And yet, somewhere along the way, the hunger had turned into something else—something hollow.
I had achieved everything I once wanted. I was currently the CMO at HDFC Bank, which was growing rapidly. So why did I still feel restless?
4. Hence, Education by
During one lecture, our professor at Azim Premji University was emphasizing on the vital role of a teacher in children’s lives when he said, ‘A teacher can cause a minor revolution in the classroom every single day.’ A simple activity on understanding differences between your peers can plant a seed in a child’s mind that will grow over time. ‘And many such tiny revolutions over time is what will bring about social change’, he declared.
All it takes is that one school term, that one teacher, that one book to change everything. The most significant change in me is the manner in which I respond to the current events enfolding before us. Every time I see something disturbing – be it religious intolerance, caste violence or even the genocide - I have observed that I do not get as distressed as I would have earlier. Instead, my focus shifts towards what we could do in our classrooms to prevent this in the future.
Every bad news only goes on to furthering my resolve. I believe that all the ills of society can resolved with suitable classroom interventions.
5. Holidays at Home by
He left home as a child like his father had done.
In her new found freedom she flew till the edges frayed. The worries flew away too, she hoped not to him.
Now, she holds him in a vice when it is time for him to leave after his holiday at home. She wants to say to him “Stay back, do not leave.”
Just then the bearded man pipes up and says"Shudhu Jaawa Aasa, shudhu srote bhaasha" It is just about going and coming, just floating along.
She imagines his response. He is now a man of few words. “The Circle of Life” he will say. The Lion King was his favourite movie as a child.
6. The assurance of joy… by
I am like the crying child having a meltdown while holding a melting ice cream. The child is upset at it slipping away and you are bewildered as to why she refuses to eat it. While it is here, now.
But hold the child, for the pain of the disappearing ice cream is also real.
Right here, now.
Her tears are real as is her needing to be held.
It is not the ice cream. She is holding on to the assured joy of this moment. And safety and love and life.
7. Reaching out to another me by
I am reaching out to another me - a Natasha who is one with the ocean and the sky. A Natasha who had left me and gone away a long time back. She was good, she was pure… she was confused, she was free. She left because that seemed to be the more practical thing to do at that time.
Guess what I was like after she was gone?
LOST. Always a little bit like a waif. Too lightweight. Fearful. Timid. Small voice.
I did okay. I finished school. I went to college. I fell in love. I moved on. I learnt to make myself whole again. Doctors, healers, books, films, flowers… sometimes an evening sky in Delhi after the monsoon rains. I read poetry. Sometimes I wrote it.
Maybe I needed to enter a water body wholeheartedly and I would find the rest of me… emerge as more of me than I had gone in.
8. I want to eat your voice by
Writers today are more partial to the page than to speech. They need to be reminded to ‘discover’ their voice. Poets are advised to work on tone, rhythm, and incantation. It is easy to forget the primary place of the voice. I too had neglected it for far too long. Until I took my first glorious bite of the human voice.
This was when I was enduring a period of necessary loneliness. I craved company, for the silence was enabling now and eerie then. I discovered the world of podcasts. I was no longer immobilised in front of the screen. Podcasts helped me lengthen the phone’s leash around my neck. I was joyous to eavesdrop on deep conversations, and they accompanied me through morning chores and spooky nights.
Upcoming Workshops:
Leadership and Selfhood through Creative Writing.
Facilitated by Natasha Badhwar and Raju Tai | AshokaX
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