Small Stories from Small Worlds

Some say that two things create the unique way in which each of us views the world around us. One is of course our personal experience and the moral framework that creates. Basically the things that we've seen first hand and the conclusions we've drawn as a result. The other is the power of narratives and the meaning we extract from them. Basically that we find meaning in stories we've been told and apply those ideas to our lives. Deep right? =) I absolutely love hearing stories about my family. Even stories about relatives I don't know very well or in some cases have never even met. They give insight not only into the people in the story but by association about myself. Anyway, I wanted to add two short stories to the Small World. After all, what would this Small Word be like without at least some recollection of the past?

My Umi Says:
My grandma (mom's mom) has told me lots of stories over the years. Two of my favorite are her description of what the streets were like the day India became independent and a story about her grandmother's house. Her grandmother's house was (and still is) in Mangalore. It was common back then for a few families to be living in the same space. I think there were two or three families living in this house at the time. My grandma explains this and then this is the part of the story she gets a little choked up about. So they had little to no money. The men in the family had jobs that barely made enough for them to get by. I think they tried a few business ventures that didn't pan out. When my mom and grandma would go over there for dinner, they would basically only serve paz (rice with water in it) with not much else in it. The other dishes would be some sort of nonche (pickled vegetables) or dried fish (which tends to be much cheaper than something fresh). The women of the house were embarrassed by all of this but really had no choice. Here's the part I love. So they basically had nothing except the fact that they knew what they were doing with paz and they were creative with dried seafood. If you go to Mangalore today, there's a restaurant called Gangi Uta, where customers come from all over to eat basic rice with dried fish curries and strange fish nonches. They started serving fresh fish but the draw is still the dried curries. They still live in the same house and it's always a trip to visit them and think about how they came up.

The Top of the Stairs:
Udupi Ramesh lives in a small room in a small village at the top of about 30 stairs. By small, I mean it basically has four walls, no kitchen, and a ceiling that barely clears his head. He's originally from Udupi (where his mom and little sister still live). Ramesh is a local mailman. When he's not working he's almost always chilling in a loongi (traditional Indian "pajama" for a guy) next to his tiny fan. He must be close to 40 by now and is still single. So why is his story so fascinating? Well I think if you just walked past, he might seem utterly insignificant.

It's not that he hasn't had marriage offers. He has had many I think. Actually he wants to wait for his little sister to get married before he does. She still isn't married and might not ever be. For food, he eats at the same restaurant every night, where fresh fish is always on the menu. The owners wife cooks up the food to order and Ramesh, at this point, knows the family very well. It's basically like eating a family dinner every night. After dinner he returns to his room, which looks like a simple box but in fact it's quite possibly one of the liveliest places in town.

Ramesh has known me since I was born but ironically I've never spoken directly to him. He only speaks Kannada, Thulu, and Hindi. Yet he's one of the people I look forward to seeing when I go back to India. He has this presence about him. I usually run up the never ending steps to his place. It's difficult to leave your shoes on the doorstep because there's sure to be a handful of people in his room at any time. Could be townspeople coming to talk about life or my cousins to play with him. When I walk in the reaction is always the same, "OOH HO HO GURU!" then a huge smile and he walks over and grabs my face. Then he laughs and sputters off something in Kannada to my cousins and everyone laughs.

In fact, he is extremely significant. Not only to countless young people that come to chat with him about life but my cousin comes home everyday from work, showers and prays, and then makes his daily pilgrimage to the top of the stairs yelling Ramesh's name as he goes up. He's an integral part of the lives of people around him.

I hope there are two takeaways here. 1) Sometimes we don't understand the impact that we ourselves have on other people and maybe more importantly the impact that seemingly random people in our lives have on us. 2) A story is told for a reason. Someone found meaning in it enough to keep it alive. My great grandmother will never know how often I think about their predicament and their solution and who knows if I will ever be able to actually communicate with Ramesh. But none of that really matters because their stories can live on either way.