Story Bridges and Time Warps
good afternoon delighted to be here with
all of you
so without further ado let’s begin
[Music]
oh
[Music]
[Music]
a song that reminds us
that birth is certain and death is
certain
all that is in between is drama and
stories
so let’s get on to some stories
if you walk around the holy city of
varanasi you will find
a unique custom there that when people
sit down to meditate
under a banyan tree or a people tree
they will always have beside them
a round pot a big one with a small round
hole
there are monkeys around and it is the
business of monkeys to do their
monkeying
and so when they get around to it and
come to disturb the meditator
the monkey gets distracted by the spot
because inside the pot
is a few bananas the monkey slides its
hand
in wraps it around the fist
but when it tries to get the hand out
there’s a catch
the hole is big enough for a straight
palm to slide in
and slide out but not for a closed fist
the monkey of course doesn’t realize
that all it has to do
is to let go of the banana for the hand
to come out
but it stays there first struggling then
confused
and then frozen in time and space
holding on and that’s what i did
i held on to i held on
to things that life showed me i had to
leave
it was the year 2000
2008 it was a year 2008
and
i was 31 years happily married
to an indian army officer had two
children
who were one and a half and three and a
half years old
and i was holding on to this picture
perfect life
of course life had to throw me out of
that slumber
january 2008
military hospital puna dr baliga was
reading my records and he said
um it’s a kidney ailment your
cholesterol count is 600 plus
it has to be below 200 and
you will need to be on steroids 80
tablets every day
four months of that life
and i knew that i dreaded each day
i knew that i really did not want this
but what is it that i wanted
i wasn’t sure it was long forgotten
lost in some unknown lands so i had to
really dig deep
and then the answer came
the answer was i wanted to tell stories
sing dance and with children
that made my eyes twinkle and that’s how
my first official storytelling event
happened in a small town in maharashtra
three weeks of stories dance fun
love and laughter 25 children
and the follow-up checkup after that dr
balagan looked at my records and said
we have to stop your medication you’re
perfectly fine
needless to say i never ever ever ever
ever ever gave up
storytelling well the learning for me
from that story
was seek your truth
seek the truth of your life and you will
certainly
blossom the destination after all is
again going to be one moment right
so let’s enjoy the journey
and let’s ignore the nissans like those
who would say hey she tells stories you
know
we also tell no yeah they’re not worth
worrying about it all there were others
who warned me
there were those who even threatened me
but stayed after naysayers my learning
it’s best to cut off from those noises
that do not serve your purpose
it’s best to cut off tune out of the
cacophony
tune into your favorite radio station
the trade-off for me in all of this was
bumpy rides of single motherhood zero
bank balance with two children to bring
up
but it was well worth the journey
because i got to hear
a beautiful voice from within when i cut
off the noises
it’s like being able to listen to the
second hand of the clock
only in the silence of the night
that’s how you get to hear your voice
soft and gentle
and when you follow this voice the solo
journeys can sometimes
be overwhelming
but they’re not really as solo as we
believe we are not
really as alone as we think so let me
give you a story for that
and this will take us to a forest
a beautiful forest and on the forest
floor
was lying a hummingbird on its back
with its legs pointing up to the sky
an elephant was walking by and saw the
strange sight and looked at the
hummingbird and said
whatever do you think you’re doing
i just received the news that the sky is
going to fall
so i’m lying down here to stop it
and the elephant said you teeny weeny
bird you
actually think you’re going to stop the
sky from falling
and the hummingbird said i’m doing my
bit
hearing this the elephant
quietly came beside the hummingbird lay
down
put his hands put his legs up and
together
they waited to catch the falling sky
the storytelling journey for me began
when i was trying to stop my sky from
falling
but the best part was i got to also stop
others skies from falling and even
better
others were there to stop my sky from
falling as well
for my very first public performance i
had hired a cultural center
and the owner said deepa i won’t take a
rental from you
i really like what you’re doing i want
to support you another friend
sent his team to do the ticketing
because otherwise i’d have to do it and
do my show as well
someone informed the press and we got a
half page coverage of the event
a few years ago a storyteller from
america wrote to me saying i really like
what you’re doing
as a gesture of appreciation i want to
gift your website
last month an elderly woman fan friend
whatsapped me saying deepa please can
you send me your bang details
i want to give you my blessings for
covet times
there’s yes there’s always support
there’s
always support the countless number of
well-wishers of kind-hearted
storytellers
of heads of institutions who’ve all
taken the effort to spread the word
festivals that invited me i the list
could go
on about the solidarity that came it’s
never a solo journey
there are so many people who are out
there to support us
so i’m famous for jumping off the cliff
and i keep telling everyone
just jump off the cliff some net will
appear or some hands will appear
or who knows you may even get wings and
you’ll start flying
so just jump off the cliff if you can
hear the voice clearly within you
well um i’ve been talking about how
stories can be so powerful and
empowering and bridges yeah
but stories have the inherent capacity
to also warp time
so let me explain that and of course
with another story
one pleasant afternoon mullana sirideen
was comfortably settled outside his
house in the front yard
under the tree and the whole environment
inspired him to write poetry
so he took out his notebook and pen and
he started to write poetry
but he was disturbed because he could
hear the children outside playing in the
afternoon singing
he was so irritated so he got up and he
went out to the children hey
and they all turn
listen don’t your children know that the
molly is giving sweets
really the children got very excited and
all of them ran away
and our mullah went back to write his
poetry
but as he was writing he saw some people
go by
and then some more and then saboni was
surprised on an afternoon
were these people going by so he went
and stopped him he said
hello where are you all going don’t you
know the mullah is giving sweets
and our mawlana sridhi thought
oh maybe really sweets are being
distributed so he left his poetry
and he also ran
so be careful what stories you tell
because the stories are surely going to
echo back to you and before you know it
they will become your truth
i’ve had moments of truth check like
this many times in my life
and here’s one of them it was december
2018
and a journalist who was interviewing me
was pushing me to speak about my mother
so tell us how did your mother
contribute to your storytelling journey
you have shared that your father you
know introduced you to stories he bought
you a lot of books and
what is your mother’s contribution
my mother never really contributed
anything she never understood my
storytelling journey she doesn’t even
accept me as a storyteller
in fact i went on to share with him my
favorite story that i love to tell about
my mother
it was the first time in 2016 that i’d
received an international invitation for
a storytelling festival in iran
yes this validates me as a storyteller
yes mama
here i come and very proudly i made a
call to her i said amma
do you know your daughter has been
invited to tell stories in iran
and my mother said are you iran pakistan
in the pundit
instead of being excited and
congratulating me
she was anxious for me that i was going
to
pakistan which she substituted for iran
in her head
and i told her journalists see my mother
never ever supported in fact she would
call me to tell me
harry you know what that uncle in
coimbatore is telling what that one is
jamshedpur is telling about your single
motherhood about your storytelling
career
these were the updates from her so i
said no no no nothing but this
journalist he was more stubborn than me
he didn’t give up he said that’s not
possible there must be something she
contributed
so i had to sit and think and think
and then i realized i said my mother’s
the one who introduced me to dance
she would take me for dance classes she
would take me for so many dance concerts
she and i would watch the best of the
best indian classical
dancers performed on doordarshan
national television
she would even record it so that we
could watch it later
and amma and i watched those recordings
a multiple number of times
she brought dance into my life and dance
is an
integral part of my storytelling dance
is what gives life to my style of story
narration
ah see the journalist with a smug smile
it was a moment of truth i had to admit
and the self-reflection continued and i
said you know i was able to make
all those international travels for so
many different festivals
primarily because my mother would come
and look after the children or
my children’s paternal grandparents or
even their father
it was so many people who contributed to
the journey
they all took turns to be there to be
available i admitted
turns out i’m not a very reliable
storyteller
well what it really turns out is that
the nature of stories is
unreliable so the danger of these
stories
is they can walk time and we are
struggling
with the past and the present but the
beauty
of these stories is that
it reminds us we have a choice we have a
choice
to step back and choose which narrative
is going to empower and to leave behind
the one which is not so as
aha raman said in his oscar speech let
us choose
love us choose stories
that empower and refuse the ones
that draw us down
and i’d like to leave you with one such
story
it was the year 2016 and i went to a
school
in rural south india
called povidam a residential school for
children of migrant workers
in rural tamil nadu of course i didn’t
miss the chance to spend time with the
children telling them stories
playing games with them the children
were from grade one and two
it was a new game i shared and one child
didn’t get the rules very clear and i
gently reminded her that she was
forgetting the rules
madanpaitiya immediately
her classmates put their arms around and
said
which meant akash she doesn’t follow or
understand very well you know
and that’s when i noticed something that
i should have noticed earlier
that girl was older than the rest of
them
obviously she was a child who was
biologically older
but had different needs and so she was
with the little ones but what
amazed me most was the children
were protective of her and even went on
to make her win the game because she was
so involved and enthusiastic
and excited being someone who works with
teachers training them on ways to engage
with the natural intelligence of the
child
through stories through music and arts
this was an experience that left me
awestruck
i delighted in the children guiding me
along on the journey of togetherness
which is what life is all about so what
better definition of education
can be asked for this experience left me
deeply inspired
and is one of those songs my heart likes
to sing
my heart likes to remember
so my learning find the song that
inspires you
seek the musicians who inspire you join
the band
and sing along you and i are going to
die
you and i are going to die so let’s not
die
with our songs unsunk
[Applause]
[Music]
in
[Music]
you and i are going to die so let’s sing
our songs before we do thank you