Stories, we are all Stories.

In the last couple of years, a lot has changed within me -be it the perks of having a plenty of alone time or the downside of a mind that’s never without a thought. I am a person who jumped off a cliff at Rishikesh. Between the moment when I was off the rock-solid ground and hadn’t hit the water, I thought, “Did I jump, or was I pushed, or did both happen at the same time!” When I was out of the water all I could think was, “What’s the big deal about the experience? It was so tiny a moment to feel anything at all?” When I asked so to my already-experienced-cliff-jumping brother, he said, “That’s just how it is.” All I am saying is that I had a thought even in that tiniest of a second and I am unashamedly okay with it. It has been recently remarked by a dear friend of mine that I think so much that I do not let myself feel anything. I am working on those lines whose roots are as deep as the hive in Stranger Things, believe me.

Having firmly established that, the one thing that has changed the most is that I have begun to see my life so far as a series of stories. The year Steve Jobs died, my brother was obsessed with one of his quotes – “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” My brother had tried to explain it in his way, minimum use of words and a lost expression that basically said, “How can you not get it!” I didn’t understand it seven years ago and today, I don’t think wiser words have been said.

One fine evening in the November of 2016, I ended up at a storytelling event hosted by Tale Tellers Troupe India. Till that evening, the only story worth speaking about my life was my tale of surviving cancer. I told the tale of how Leukemia wasn’t just a disease for the nth time. Since that eventful day, I have encouraged every single person I know to attend at least one of the storytelling sessions hosted by TTTI because it was then that I realised, that every moment of my life so far has been a story, and not just any story. Surviving Leukemia does make me great in front of people. When I look back, I simply see a tantrum throwing fourteen-year-old with no sense of respect for anyone, and that’s not something I am proud of.

That day on, began the unveiling of hundreds of my life's stories. Stories, quite common perhaps, with feelings that are personalised. Having disliked labels all my life, I put on the one of a feminist because I couldn’t bear how such a great movement is being bastardised. When I look back I find the making of a feminist from, perhaps, the age of six or seven when my brothers overpowered me in a physical fight. I craved for my own team of sisters equally capable as my brothers, because I hated feeling powerless. So, when my father wonders, “why are you so obsessed with gender?” I think, ‘because I was meant to be.’

When I look back at my life, I broadly see a powerless kid and a body shamed leukemia suffering teenager. Both of them have a million stories to tell. Oh, am I only looking at the downside of my past and making a mountain out of a mole? I don’t think so. I would have had an amazing self esteem had I known that looks do not define me at the age of thirteen. I would have cried less for my beautiful long hair being shaved during chemotherapy. I would have grown up thinking that I am completely capable of being romantically loved and a lot more. Yes, good things happened too. I did discover that I have a brilliantly stubborn mind that accomplishes what it wants and that, love happens to all. They are stories for later. All these stories have made me who I am today and I cannot ignore their presence especially when they are demanding to be acknowledged.

I am not a person who can deal with small talks. I am also not a person who is going to begin a conversation about existence, atoms, and the big bang. I am a person interested in stories. I always have been. I have listened to people without any judgments and advice to offer till they ask for one. Their stories, sometimes even that of what seemed like a really stupid break up, told me a lot about who they were in that moment. The best thing about simply being a listener is acknowledging the fact that their story is just theirs, something that they experienced. And, even if on a broad scale it looks homogeneous to others’ stories, their experience of it, their hunt for words to express exactly what they felt made it a beautiful story worth listening.

Image- From one of the events of TTTI that I attended in 2017.

Today, the saddest words I hear in a conversation are, “I have no story to tell.” At times people say, “Nothing amazing has happened in my life to talk about.” I don’t know what is amazing, because cliff jumping did me no good. Perhaps, I am not meant for such adventure sports. Once I began, I couldn’t stop seeing my life as an incomplete book. I began longing for readers. I am no one anyone would come looking for, so I have got to tell my story out loud. Honestly, once you connect the dots backwards, discovering your real self isn’t as great a mystery as it seems. For example, I get gender from my mother and the need to change the world from my father. I am as simple as my genetic construct and as complex as my parents’ unspoken selves. And, I have a million stories to tell whether or not I have a listener. If someday you discover a story within you, be sure that you definitely have a listener in me. The only question is, will you be brave enough to tell your tale that looks so silly but is truly worth saying out loud?