When I look back at the days of my childhood, I remember a time when I could not read. I used to listen to stories then. Told to me by my grandmothers, and grandfather. My Ammama came to visit quite rarely, whether ill-health, or chores kept her away, I do not know. The dustance between Matunga and Dadar was not much, yet those were the days when people did not visit their daughter's marital homes much. Perhaps that was the reaon. When she visited us in Goa much later, she used to read to me from Ekalavya magazine and regale me with stories. Now when my aunt comes to visit and tells of stories that her Kamli Attya had, I feel as if some gaps are filled. Wisps of memories like fog in the rising sun, touch me softly. At least I have that.
My Ajjapappa ( Pappa's father) was a man of few words and watched over me, no stories though. At least none that he told a three year old. My paternal grandmother did. She told me many and also taught me the distinction between tales and stories. She taught me the difference between a 'khabbari' which is factual narrative; and a 'kaani'which is fiction. She regaled me with Tales of Baroda, ( Badodey Khabbari, my all time favourites) the summers she spent at the palace of the Maharajah of Baroda, Sayaji Rao Gaekwad, at whose court her maternal uncle worked. I could see it then: the Royal elephants chomping down rotis smeared with warm ghee, the piles of jasmine flowers that her aunt strung into gajras for her hair, the large Gujrati swing in the varandah.... When I passed the Sayaji University campus in Baroda on a recent visit, those stories came alive again. I saw through the smog and the crowds to another time; when a little orphaned girl used to read the world around her and perhaos say to herself " Someday I will tell my granddaughter that I spent summers in a palace.
That girl was my grandmother, my Teeamma. She also told me about the ups and downs that she went through in life. How her father had passed away when she was 7 and how she, with her two brothers and mother were left to live in the homes of uncles. How lights were turned off while they still had homework to do as the uncles' wives would complain about the mounting bills. How she was married at 16 right after her matriculation examination and how her brother went to England to study ahead. How her mother did not survive to see her first grandson, my father, and how she dreamt of a better future.
These stories gave me courage when Pappa pased away, I used to say to myself: "At least I have a job, my siblings and I are not at the mercy of uncaring relatives. No one is going to turn out the ligths when they have homework, I help pay the bills. So there"
Amma used to bring me books from her school library and read to me. Her soft voice would wash over me and though I did not understand too many words of English ( except sorry, thank you, ice cream and taxi) I knew that these words told a story. She read each sentence patiently and then translated it for me. She also told me stories of summers spent at the Udipi House where she was born, many years later when I took my children to visit, they too saw their grandmother as a little girl. I am paying forward my debts. So on and on until one day sitting on a cold park bench opposite Singbal Book Depot in Panji, Goa, Amma taught me to read the Balbharati reader in grade 1.
Pappa, now was a different type of reader. He used to read Marathi books and subscribed to magazines so that I should be able to enjoy Marathi literature too. He read aloud from Pu La Deshpande's books: Batatyachi Chaal, Gann Goath and others. And the newspaper. Those days in Goa, the Times of India arrived from Mumbai by plane and we received it in the evening. Until I came to Mumbai at 13, I had always thought that newspapers were delivered in the pm! With the newspaper spread out on the floor, he would read aloud. His laughter rang out and I would know he was reading R.K Laxman's You Said It. He would explain the context of the cartoon to me and tell me what it is that The Master had referred to in his inimitable way. He spoke about politics, about the Budget and about world news. So many of us read print and do not know how to read the world and signs that come to us everyday. Pappa taught me to look beyond words into bias and prejudice. He taught me perspective and point of view through laying side by side the story of India's Freedom Movement as well the incidents reported from the Kashmir Valley which we had not become blase about yet. He reminded me to question and to find my own answers. He brought the wide to me just by inviting me into his. Today, 24 years since his passing, I can only imagine how thrilled he would have been at the magic of the World Wide Web. Maybe he is, who knows. My siblings, nephews (dear A and A), my children and now my nieces ( A and K ) have been the architects of my own role as storyteller. The boys ( young men now) used to say that ' Maushi reads in many voices'. I was at once the lion and the mouse. Vikha who even at the ripe old age of 18 insisted on a bedtime story every night and rejected all my attempts to make one up about her ( Once upon time there lived a beautiful girl...No Didi, that is my story, tell me another one), helped me see that we all love a time to snuggle into our imagination and stay there for a while.
There is one more reading buddy who stands lost in the pages of my own stories. When last heard of, he had sold all the books that we had once loved together, like a stash of stale newspapers. What he chose to keep close and what he chose to throw away as scrap is after all a personal decision. And the loss is his to bear. I still have a book shelf that keeps me warm through every winter. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Naipaul still remind me of lazy, literary Sunday afternoons in Bandra.
And then there is Sheryl. My Guru in many ways, she quite effortlessly through the Stories From Home initiative, helped me see that our lives are indeed the stories of our times, our spoken history. These are the authentic experiences in literacy that the curriculum insists we present students with. So someday they too will say: "Once upon a time, there lived a little girl".... And maybe tell their own stories to their children and grandchildren. What better way to document our journeys. What better way to remind ourselves of our own lives !
