Stories that demand to be told | #5

"Fortunately, on most days, I don’t wish us all dead. I am filled with deep gratitude...Despite the ever-present pinch of sorrow at the very centre my being, I am now able to function..."

Ochre Sky Stories

Natasha Badhwar

Raju Tai

, and 5 others

Jul 13, 2024

This is the fifth 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

1. The Word-Power Summer by
Tanuj Solanki

He brought me a red register, in which I wrote down all the words from the Lewis book. But the real joy, the extent and import of which became clear to me much later, was in one simple exercise: I made sentences with those new words.
Line after line of awkward composition filled the register. I would challenge myself to include two tricky words in a sentence, then three, then four. The meanings of those sentences could be anywhere on the astounding to absurd spectrum.
Sometimes, I concatenated the sentences to make paragraphs, to see if I could maintain some unity of meaning. It required a lot of editing, of course, and a lot of rewriting. The outputs of this creation were completely private. They no doubt owed their intensity to the fact that there was no clear utility to this, that it was pure play. My parents wouldn’t have understood: not the sentences, nor the effort in making them. My father once opened the register and asked me, in Hindi: ‘Are you trying to become a writer-viter?’

2. Dirty Girl by
Samira

When I turned forty, something changed. It did not happen overnight, like curd. No, this was a slow brew, fermenting in a grand old oak casket for twenty years. At forty, it had reached its maturity and was ready to be opened and tasted. I had completed a year of therapy and worked through my years of sexual repression and feelings of shame. I felt bolder and ready to ask for pleasure.

But how could I ask for something if I did not know what I wanted or how I wanted it? A friend suggested a vibrator. It was all the rage. It came in discreet packaging, an ordinary brown box with my name on it. My heart thumped and hand trembled as I took what I now consider the first steps to sexual freedom.

3. When Life Gives you Lemons by
Ila Reddy

Geckos and frogs come out in the monsoons and move in and out of the house (and especially the bathroom). Langurs visit daily to devour fruits, throw leftovers wherever they like, play in the garden like they own the place, and you can do nothing about it except watch. Insects of all shapes, sizes, and colours venture into the house if you don’t shut the door by 5 pm. Roosters crow at all hours of the day but more loudly and frequently when you’re on Zoom calls, especially the very minute you are trying to communicate something important to your colleagues.

But no complaints.

I also see fireflies every night, sometimes right outside my bedroom window. The moon shines bright and the stars twinkle on clear nights. I wake up to birdsong. It is magical.

4. Grateful, even for the grief by
Binu Sivan

How could this be? How is this my reality? These days lead to a darker phase where I often pray for a meteor to hit earth and be done with all this madness of kids dying. Children should not die before their parents! This is madness! Bring on the meteor.

Fortunately, on most days, I don’t wish us all dead. On the contrary, I am filled with deep gratitude for whatever little I have, and live fully present in the moment. I can’t change the past and the future is beyond my control. That leaves the present and it has my full attention. Despite the ever-present pinch of sorrow at the very centre of my being, I am now able to function like a regular person on most days.

5. Revenge is mine… - by
Sushil Jhangiani

So there we were, driving up the road, with a bunch of boisterous schoolboys, none more so than the bully next to me, who was shouting over the sound and of the bus engine and gesticulating to his friends in the back. And here I was, feeling thoroughly miserable with myself for my predicament, but holding on to my small bit of space on that seat, more for my pride and to keep face. And trying to keep a brave face, though I was close to tears. DD glanced at me a couple of times but said nothing.

And then I saw it. In the outer pocket of his blazer, the bully had a neatly folded piece of red cellophane paper. I knew it was precious to him the moment I set eyes on it. Don’t ask me why, or how; I just knew. And in that moment, I knew what I was going to do. I was going to separate him from his precious cellophane.

6. Vacation planning tips by
Mukta Naik

We come from a culture where vacationing, in the sense of seeing-the-sights tourism and collecting experiences, is a recent concept. When we were little, we visited grandparents and relatives during vacations. My mother, an avid traveller to date, was unique in her passion for travel. Thanks to her meticulous planning and dogged determination to ensure everything fell in place, including getting my workaholic dad to take a break, I saw diverse parts of India at a young age. A white peacock dancing in Kanha Wildlife Sanctuary, holding Bharatanatyam poses inside spectacular Hoysala temples, and hiking the Western ghats are some of the experiences that form a part of my “core memories” that shaped my personality, to follow Inside Out terminology.

Without my own formed thoughts about the intent and structure behind travel, I was following an older script of anxiousness and over-planning for several years. But it was not working, not in the least, because vacation planning is not my talent at all!

7. Of Dreams and Paybacks by
Chetna

I walk the 2 blocks back to home- a walk of shame - in my head . All neighbours were outside their houses , waiting to Congratulate. Looking at our faces, they don’t ask anything. My father announces with a smile “Nahi hua, next year try karegi”

“Arey koi baat nahi bhaisahab, mushkil exam hai”

As we reach home, my father is getting ready to go to the nearest railway station ( which is 60 km away) to cancel the ticket to Bombay. We had booked it in advance for counselling at IITB. Everybody believed I would get through. I have my breakfast in silence. Suddenly the phone rings, it’s a friends father.

“Bhabhiji , badhai ho”

“Nahi bhai Sahab, Chetna( me) ka to nahi hua”

“Arey kya baat kar rahe hain, yahan to rank dikha raha hai, mere pass Chetna ka roll number hai”

8. Long overdue Letter to No Ordinary Mother by
Kamalini

There was a time in life, when you were my protector, my mentor and my bestie. When you turned into someone I couldn’t keep up with, I felt I’d lost a limb.

You, on your part, were puzzled by my personality too- frazzled-now, over-confident now. It was a mutual loss. Confusion and pain ensued. Your scores of diaries are testament to the fact.

You often asked how I managed to keep up with my kids, and in turn I wanted to tell you, they’re a whole deal easier than you to keep up with maa!

9. The Original Gangsters by
Naina Raturi

Sometimes I would cheat. I would scan my friends’ lunchboxes and take mouthfuls of various cuisines - idlis, cheelas, sandwiches. If they were also stuck with parathas, I would check if someone was going to the canteen, and wait like a fox for them to come out with their loot. I am sure they weren’t too pleased when I gobbled up bites from the treats they bought for themselves after having to ask for money from their parents, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

But now…who would go home and dare to show an unfinished lunch to a woman who hates waking up in the mornings to spend time in the kitchen? Not me. No chance. I was already filled with guilt and shame, and on top of it you ask me to walk off the cliff willingly?

10. Sum of Permissions by
Priya’s Substack

Permission to sing and dance: I’ll admit to an embarrassing detail about my family… They love to watch Indian Idol, Sa Re Ga Ma, Jhalak Dikhla Jaa, India’s Got talent. It’s almost aspirational (I did say embarrassing) and I have to say my family has managed to produce some decent “Singing & Dancing talent”. No points for guessing, but who missed their share of this gene pool?

Dealing with this real competition, finding the confidence in my “twirls & thumkas”, pheww tiring mental effort. Proud to say, I do dance like nobody's watching. Took me many years to give myself that permission. My friend once told me “ Itna dheeme kyun gaate ho, zor se gaao, achhi awaaz hai '' Guess what, I just recorded a small byte of me singing and shared it with a couple of friends last week.

11. The Innate Dignity of Children by
Natasha Badhwar

I tell her that she must say no to any experience that doesn’t feel good. She can un-choose what happens around her. Her boundaries belong to her.

I read other people’s essays on bullying and consent to get a perpective. This is the age when children must have the permission to be in control. To be able to preserve their innate dignity.

“Sometimes when I do something bad,” she shares, “I think why do I exist at all?”
“I also feel like that,” I say.
“Then I sit on the floor with my back to the wall and hold myself till I calm down,” adds the child. “I also feel sometimes that I do everything wrong.”

12. Why I Gape at the Dramatic Expanse of the Sky by
Raju Tai

How do my illnesses evaporate when I look up at this ultimate umbrella? First, the sky becomes a meditation teacher. It instructs me to treat my inner weather to be as transient as the mid-morning clouds. The clouds are to the sky what thoughts are to my mind, and what sensations are to my body. Even when the sky turns charcoal, thunders, and cracks up like an egg, it doesn’t break.

Next, the sky does a kind thing by staying far from us all. While it gives us company on terribly lonely days, it doesn’t allow us to touch it. And it would be sad to touch it, like it was for Truman from The Truman Show, to find a door in the sky, a fake sky. The real sky teaches how to love what is far. By maintaining its boundaries, the sky inspires me too to become a free canvas.