Veranda Tales-Life is challenging
Storytelling has been an integral part of my life since childhood. I grew up listening to stories during the hot summer evenings and nights with my cousins. Mothers and grandmothers would gather all of us children for story time. It was usually pitch dark except for a very faint light coming from the flickering candle. Power cuts were as frequent as the hot and humid summer days. We all spread out on a cool concrete floor or bamboo mats on the veranda intently listening to fascinating stories about kings, queens, princes, princesses, and peasants alike. Stories about love, life, families, and people entertained and taught us life skills. These stories transported us to distant worlds, strange yet familiar. Often the same story told by two people sounded different as storytellers added new twists and turns adding their personal style and flair to the stories.
Storytelling wasn’t limited to summer evenings and bedtime. I was surrounded by adults who didn’t pass up an opportunity to share their wisdom using the art of storytelling. These rich vibrant oral traditions include songs, poems, stories, and సామెతలు (Sametalu are proverbs in Telugu). Men and women sing songs as they work in the fields, grinding grains and spices and doing other daily chores at their homes. Stories are often used to teach important life lessons, interpersonal skills, and survival skills. These stories and the time spent listening to them made our lives richer leaving an impression on me. This series is all about reliving those memories as I share these stories.
సీత బాధలు సీతవి, పీత బాధలు పీతవి (Sita badhalu Sitavi, Pita badhalu Pitavi)
Challenges and hardships are a human condition. We can safely say all humans have some problem or the other. We can’t grasp the problems others are facing unless we walk in their shoes. We think we are the only ones with problems and challenges in life but that is far from reality. The truth of the matter is all of us humans face problems and challenges. Life is simply boring without them. We humans can adapt to changes. Our brains can put positive and negative experiences in perspective. We return to a stable state over time after encountering a high of positive and a low of negative experience. This is why we hear people say “Time is a healer”.
This rhyming sameta conveys the sentiment that we all have our problems. When I heard this sameta when I was growing up, I was amused by its clever rhyme. The sameta means, “Sita’s problems are Sita’s and Pita’s problems are Pita’s”. పీత (Pita means crab in Telugu). సీత (Sita) rhymes with పీత (Pita). When I hear it, images of serene Sita and a crab come to mind.
Sita is a Hindu goddess and wife of Rama, the avatar of Vishnu. Sita is regarded as a form of Vishnu's wife. Sita is also known as Janaki (daughter of Janaka, king of Videha), Maithili (from Mithila region), Vaidehi (from Videha) and Bhumija (daughter of Bhumi). The Bhumi (The Earth) or Bhudevi is a Hindu goddess who is the personification of the Earth.
Sita married Rama, prince of Ayodhya in her Swayamvara. Swayamvara is a form of marriage where a bride chooses a husband from a group of suitors. Suitors compete to demonstrate their skills at events to test their abilities. According to the legend, Sita was very strong and could lift Shiva Dhanush (Lord Shiva’s bow) easily. Janaka decided that a warrior strong enough to string Shiva Dhanush (Lord Shiva’s bow) was worthy of her daughter. Rama was the only suitor strong enough to string the bow and Sita married him by placing a garland around his neck as per the rules of the Swayamvara. After the marriage, Sita followed Rama into exile when Rama chose to go into exile, abiding by his father’s and stepmother’s orders. Sita endured years of living in forests and surviving the abduction by Ravana. After she was rescued, she was asked to prove her chastity through Agnipravesham (an ordeal of fire), which she did. Sita, the chief goddess of Rama-centric Hindu traditions is known for her dedication, self-sacrifice, courage, and purity yet she endured many hardships and challenges in her life.
పీత (Pita, our little crab) dodges predators day and night while it eats whatever it can catch and crack open with its pincers, including shrimp, brittle stars, sponges, worms, small fish, and small shelled creatures like scallops, mussels, other crabs, and cockles. Crabs might not have the same problems as humans, but they have their own.
Sita, the mighty goddess and a small crab living in an ocean face problems befitting their stature. It doesn’t matter who we are, all of us living beings on this planet face problems and challenges of our own. As we complain about summers getting hotter, Polar bears are losing their habitats. As we drive our cars as fast as we can to get to our next destination, squirrels, deer, and other animals try to dodge the cars to cross the roads to get to their feeding grounds at dawn and sleeping grounds at dusk.
This sameta has a deeper meaning which I came to appreciate more and more as I got older and faced a few challenges of my own. నాన్న (Nanna is father in Telugu) would say “సీత బాధలు సీతవి, పీత బాధలు పీతవి (Sita badhalu Sitavi, Pita badhalu Pitavi)” or ఎవరి బాధలు వాళ్ళవి (evari badhalu vallavi) when he heard about people facing hardships. It is his way of saying that all of us have our problems and it is hard to understand other people’s problems. He would say it is good to help people solve their problems by being there for them. He believed one should not solve people’s problems for them. నాన్న (Nanna) taught this value to me by modeling it by not solving my problems and being there for me as I figured out ways to solve them. He asked me what he could do to help and be there to help if and when I needed it. He trusted me and left it up to me to make difficult decisions.
I was nervous and anxious about the first day of 5th grade about being able to make friends at my new school. Unlike the other schools I attended so far, this one was large and taught 1st grade to 10th grade. The campus spanned a couple of football fields. As I walked in I saw a girl sitting on a desk in the front row with a welcoming smile lighting up her face. She asked me to sit next to her. She made me feel comfortable and I was no longer anxious. We became good friends. We shared snacks and swapped stories for the next year and a half. I visited her home which was much closer to the school than mine. We would walk together to her home from school during lunch. I ate lunch I brought from home and she had a meal her mom made at her place. We would then walk back to school.
An old lady sold తాటి తాండ్ర (Thati tandra) and Jeedi at school during morning and afternoon recesses. She sat by the school entrance with her basket full of goodies she made at her home. తాటి తాండ్ర (Thati tandra) is fruit leather made out of Palm fruit juice. Jeedi is a small ball or cube made out of a thick Jaggery syrup mixed with sesame seeds. అమ్మ (Amma is mother in Telugu) didn’t think it was healthy to buy snacks at school. She sent me to school with Parle G biscuits (cookies). I loved తాటి తాండ్ర (Thati tandra) and Jeedi. Furthermore, I considered buying snacks from the vendor as a rite of passage. I loved my friend’s freedom to be able to buy snacks from the vendor. My friend loved Parle G biscuits and we would exchange snacks. I looked forward to going to school and spending the day with her. I remember her pigtails and her cozy little cottage even to this day.
One morning I walked into the classroom, I scanned the classroom looking for her like I did every morning. She wasn't there. I asked around and found out she was gone. She didn’t move to another school in the same city or another city. She was gone. The news of her death shocked me. I went home and cried. Nanna took me to her home to visit with her grieving parents. They knew her life was going to be short as she was born with a heart condition. I don’t remember if there was no cure for her condition in those days or if they didn’t have the means to find medical help. I was sick for a while due to the grief of losing her. Nanna explained that grief can cause illness and helped me deal with this first major loss at my own pace. I am thankful forever for sharing time and space with my first true friend, however short it was. I feel peaceful when I think about her.
When I was in 10th grade, our final exam tests leaked. It was a statewide test prepared by state education board officials. I no longer remember who leaked them and how. Our finals lasted a couple of weeks as we took tests in each of our subjects on a designated day. A classmate stopped by our house the night before the first exam bearing the gift of the leaked test. Nanna made sure I had the opportunity to decide if I wanted to take the leaked tests or not. The only thing he said to me was that I would be at a disadvantage since some or most of my classmates might have chosen to take advantage of this leak. They would have the upper hand since they know what would be on the final exam. He didn’t tell me what I should do and let me decide to refuse to look at the test. My classmate was puzzled, surprised, and looked disappointed as he walked away. Nanna said he was happy with the decision I made and was proud of me for having the confidence to not be tempted by the opportunity. He told me if I didn’t know my stuff the day before the exam, looking at the test and learning the answers wouldn't help and that I wouldn’t be happy with the result even if it was stellar. He was right and I did just fine in the end and proud of the choice I made.
I didn’t give much thought to Nanna’s problems and challenges. He was a giant and invincible to me when I was little. He was also an enigma just like a deep blue lake hiding what is beneath its calm exterior. I didn’t understand how difficult it is for a parent to watch their children struggle until I became one. I fully understood how hard it was for Nanna to watch me leave home to pursue my dreams on the other side of the world. I heard he would wake up screaming my name when he dreamt about some danger I was in. He never discouraged me or shared his fears with me. I try very hard every single day to be a parent like he was to me. It is hard for me to just watch as my children struggle with the challenges in their lives. But I do know better than to jump in to solve their problems for them. It is hard and when I slip up, they tell me to back off. My role as a parent is to provide them with resources to help them build their lives. Just like my dad, I am determined to not pave the road for my children. I just want to help them pave their life paths.
As I struggle to make my children feel loved and supported without smothering them, I repeat to myself, “సీత బాధలు సీతవి, పీత బాధలు పీతవి (Sita badhalu Sitavi, Pita badhalu Pitavi)”. It brings me peace and joy.