THE STORIES OF OUR LIVES

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

When we met on annual vacations in India or when he visited us, my father-in-law would encourage me to ask him for family stories.

“They’ll be gone with me,” he’d say.

As a busy young mother at the time, whose interest in “stories” revolved more around books published specifically for children, I have to confess I probably displayed less interest than I should have.

And thus I am grateful that, regardless, he regaled us with stories of how he learnt to swim in the village pond – one in which buffaloes also took a dip! Or of picnics on rocks along a river bank and walking across the river bed in dry season. Of the time onions stored in a warehouse went bad and oh, the stink! My personal favourite was of his first meeting with the shy 14-year-old girl who would go on to become my mother-in-law.

I inherited a similar stash of stories from my parents, too. From these I learnt that my mother was not always the poised woman we knew, but as a young tomboy she’d followed her brothers on several escapades that included climbing over walls. And that she didn’t like the same vegetables I was not fond of but was taught to finish them by her stern mother (who morphed into a very indulgent grandmother!).

That my father was raised in a family that had several pets, including a resident peacock that made a grape arbour its retreat. The peacock was long gone by the time we visited the family home on summer vacations, but I have a photograph of myself as a little girl flanked by two cousins, sitting under ancient grape vines. I’d devour details of their own love story, of how my father, a friend of my mother’s brothers, courted her.

One of my parents’ dear friends shares with me stories of the times when they were young couples. Of the bonds they formed, raising their children in cities far away from where they themselves were raised.

Aunty (all our parents’ friends were uncle and aunty) now also sends books with Indian themes for our grandson.

“This is how Krishna, the Superman of all times, started his life,” she writes in one. She sends him a child’s view of the Mahabharata – quite literally so. Samhita Arni was 12 when she wrote and illustrated it. In it, aunty wrote: “Here is a great epic story you read again and again as you grow up to be a man”. And in The Best of Jataka Tales, “Here are some fun stories that grow with you”.

Growing up in Bangalore (now known as Bengaluru), I didn’t think of my surroundings as stuff that stories are made of. It was no exotic city, but a beautiful, modern one. But looking back, they have acquired an almost Jungle Book-esque patina.

Our grandson has a growing collection of books, but his favourite stories are from when my husband and I were children in faraway India. He listens enraptured when I describe the monkeys that roamed the streets in Delhi and how large monkeys were trained to capture or drive away smaller ones.

About an afternoon during which my younger brother and I threw banana after banana towards two monkeys on the terrace of a home facing ours in an effort to get at least one past the larger one. Without success. He grabbed every single one, leaving the little one to scrape the peels with his teeth. And of our mother’s reaction when she awoke from an afternoon nap to find all the bananas gone!

“Was the crocodile also there?” he asks. Before I can seize upon the opportunity for a little lesson on natural history, it dawns on me. He is referencing the Panchatantra story about the crocodile who wanted to take a monkey home for his wife to feast on. I assure him our monkeys were safe from harm.

And tell him how his grandfather learnt to ride on a rented bicycle, just like all the kids in the neighbourhood.

How we climbed guava and mango trees in our yards. The little one is too young to hide his disbelief. “You climbed trees?” he asks, goggle-eyed.

In her column in February 2022 Dr Vicki Bismilla wrote of stories she tells her grandchildren.

“My husband and I are no longer professional educators but nonetheless still educators. We delight in telling stories to our grandchildren about our childhoods growing up in Africa. I have made an unwavering commitment to my children and grandchildren to help with my grandchildren. I have become my mother, my grandmother, my mother-in-law, my sisters and all the Indian mothers who raised me. I cook, I clean, I change diapers. I feel the heartbeat of my littlest one as he naps on my chest and listens to my heartbeat. I cherish the warm hugs of my toddler and older grandchildren. I tell stories to my precious ones as they snuggle up on my lap. I sing to their enraptured attention, I read picture books, I tell them about my childhood growing up climbing trees and meeting snakes much to their wide-eyed wonder! That’s who I am. My life my gifts.” 

During a Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) event last year, Jesse Wente told festival director Rolland Gulliver, “Humans are a story-telling animal – we understand everything through stories”.

These stories are priceless. They tell our children and grandchildren where they come from. When they visit the old countries some years down the road, they will not feel like strangers – the stories will bring them home. A different home in a once-upon-a-time in a land far-far-away way, but home, nonetheless.