I am a living book - Madhav
2 My childhood home
3 My life began in the 1960s. In a small town in South India. So small that everyone knew everyone else. My house was right at the edge of town. The roads were empty. Quiet. A bus passed by once an hour. When the sun went down, everything shut down. Shops. Streets. Everything. 60 years to understand my childhood Read the book, watch the video, or both! [click play]
4 With my ammamma and uncle Birth of a storyteller: Three generations
5 My World Every evening at six o’clock, the lights went out. They called it energy conservation. I lived with two people I loved more than anything. I called them ammamma and ammachan. In the evenings, we would sit on the porch while ammamma fed me. She would tell me stories. Folk tales and stories from Hindu mythologies. Life was simple. No television. No phones. At seven, my ammachan would listen to news on the radio that ran on batteries. Once he told me the news that three men landed on the moon. For the first time. I led a sheltered life. Protected. I went to school in a rickshaw pulled by a human. That was the only time I stepped outside the house. On weekends, neighbouring kids would come over to play football. Life was simple. I lived with two people I loved more than anything. I called them ammamma and ammachan.
6 Ammachan and me Posing for the first time
7 The long train ride Both ammamma and ammachan were doctors. If I got sick, I got the full treatment. Injections, if my fever didn’t go away. One time I needed surgery. Guess where it happened? In our dining room. It became an operating theatre. That was my world. As I grew older, I started noticing things. During school events other kids were accompanied by younger adults. I didn’t understand the age difference. I did not ask ammamma. I lived in an age and culture where you did not ask questions. You’d never get an answer anyway. When I was seven, everything changed. Ammamma took me on a train journey. This was my first train ride. And that too a long one. The giant steam engine impressed me. I pressed my face against the metal bars to see the engine with its smoke when the train turned. As I grew older, I started noticing things. The other kids had younger adults accompanying them for school events.
8 Steam engine
9 Lack of feelings Late afternoon on the third day, we got off the train. The train station was very noisy. I tightly held on to ammamma’s hand. We started walking to the front of the station. And there it was. The engine. Huge. Black. Steam was coming out from everywhere. It formed a thick mist around us. Then I saw them. Through the steam. Two people walking towards us. Young. Well dressed. Ammamma bent down and whispered in my ear. She said, ‘These are your parents.’ I didn’t understand. What did that mean? How were they different from ammamma and ammachan? They were just people I had never met before. I felt nothing. Nothing at all. I went back home after the holidays. When I started telling my friends about the trip, I began to understand. There was a difference. A big one. Ammamma and ammachan were my grandparents. Ammamma bent down and whispered, “These are your parents.”
10 [clockwise] With Ammamma, mother, and younger brother.
11 Life disrupted When I was thirteen, my grandfather died. A heart attack. He was sixty. I didn’t understand death yet. My life got disrupted. My father took me away from my grandmother. From the life I knew and felt safe. I was taken far away to a place I’d never been. A family I’d never met. It took me a long time to get used to them. I found out it was my father’s ancestral home. Three generations living under one roof. When I was seventeen, a cousin told me that my parents had been on the verge of divorce soon after I was born. I became obsessed to find out more. I started listening to bits and pieces of family conversations. Putting things together. Slowly. The stories were disturbing. I went through the different stages of grief. It came in waves. Still does. Then I met someone. And something wonderful I began to piece together bits of stories. They were disturbing.
12 [clockwise] With my uncle, ammachan and ammama with me and mothe, and me.
13 happened. I discovered love. A beautiful feeling. It filled every part of me. For the first time in my life, I hugged someone. I don’t remember being hugged before. Not once. Not even as a child. I chased and married her! She is my wife. For forty years now. I visited my parents, when I could. But I still didn’t feel any emotion towards that couple. They were just duty visits. My one big regret I began to accept my story. I read self-help books. I moved far away from my parents. First to Mumbai. Then Dubai. Canada. Even now, I have one big regret. I wish I had asked ammamma and ammachan about their lives. Their real stories. I never asked. And now they’re gone. And everyone else from their generation has passed on. In December 2022, my mother died. From the stories I Ammamma and ammachan are no more. All the people who knew them well have also passed on. My one regret is, I did not get to know them. I think of my grandparents every day. Even now.
14 All by myself!
15 pieced together I found out she lived a sad life. Her childhood was spent in boarding school. She spent her whole life trapped in a marriage that hurt her. Permission to feel One year later, my father died. I was getting ready to go to a party. I walked into my house with a bouquet of flowers when the phone rang. It was my brother in India. He said dad was no more. I stood there. Holding the flowers. Thinking. Should I go to the party or not? Over the next few months, I felt emotions I’d never felt before. It was like the universe gave me permission. Permission to feel. The strongest one was hate. Hatred towards the things that happened. Especially my father. I didn’t know I’d been suppressing it for fifty years. Then my uncle told me something new. My parents left me with my grandparents when I was five months old. Five months. I didn’t know that. The sense of abandonment returned. Stronger than ever. I didn’t know how to navigate this minefield. I felt emotions I did not know existed. The strongest of them was hate.
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17 Meditation I talked to therapists. NLP practitioners. Psychologists. Psychiatrists. I started meditating. I went on a ten-day silent retreat in a remote place. I did not take my car. I feared that I might not complete the retreat. I was meditating the whole day. Seventeen hours a day, not talking or even looking at anyone else. Just me and my thoughts. The silence became louder. I couldn’t handle it. The thoughts. It echoed in my mind like a whirlpool. I escaped after five days. Hitched a ride back to the bus station. The relief was short-lived. Soon after I got on to the bus, I felt the guilt for not completing the course. A year later, I went back. I finished the full ten days. From four in the morning till nine at night. Just me and my thoughts. Learning to manage it better. A lot of the toxins came out during meditation. I thought I’d either go crazy or come out better. I think I came out a slightly better person. I thought I’d either go mad or come out of it a better person.
18 Probably the first time i was with my parents
19 The storytelling journey Then I did something that changed everything. I started to write my story. Tell my story to anyone who would listen. I broke down. I cried while telling it. I still do. Sometimes. It is easy to tell someone else to forgive and forget about the people who hurt them. But for the person who experienced it, it is not an easy process. One can act bravely and try to suppress it. But it catches up with you. One way or another. Sometime or another. But the more I told my story, the more I made peace with it. This became my healing. It is a process. A long one. I doubt if I will ever find absolute peace. I took up storytelling. Full time. Now I help others tell their stories. I took up storytelling. Now, I help others tell their stories.
I am a Living Book. This is my story. - Madhav
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