the storytellers do not die
by shrenik mutha; artwork by Sohini Sengupta
when i was young, i thought
i’d have to steal stories to live ‘em,
steal words and breaths, feel breath quicken
in another’s body, feel only fear in mine.
that i would not have stories of my own
for i’m just someone, a shadow of a cactus.
no fruits of mine, not even in the shadow,
no use of me, nothing to be.
not even a shadow hiding the sun.
so, steal. stories. words. abuses. steal.
take the other’s
and pierce it with a syringe to
suck it in, inject it in my bloodstream,
so when i lie
it looks like i’m bleeding
like this was really mine.
until i figured if childhood was of having no friends,
i have stories of how i survived without friends.
until i figured if people didn’t talk to me because i dug my nose, there were stories as to why i dug my nose.
until i figured if teenage was an age of isolation and abuse,
there were stories dropping as tears when i cried
and no tear was loud enough to let the world tremble
as much as my body did, on the inside.
until i figured if childhood was getting drawn to lingerie more than cotton briefs,
and the sound of ‘gay gay gay’ beat in my ears, i had stories
of how i would clamp my palm on my ears and how that never helped,
for how does one close the ear to stop the voice from the inside?
i learnt, stories are the usher and the call
of the pain and tremble from beneath our skin.
stories are reminding our veins how much they have bled and
how much effort has gone into clotting the blood every time they were cut,
stories are not slashed wrists which do not remember the punches punched or blocked
but only the ones accepted-in fear and silence. like the bullies
used words stronger than punches to push me down,
even while my pulse was louder than their abuses.
last time i went and saw a psychiatrist, paining and hurting,
he asked me how i felt,
what exactly the problem was? he asked me
with his intent, i knew he was to be paid for his care.
but, how does one collect all the stories from the past,
all the histories of violence, all the boxes we did not fit in,
all the boxes we forced ourselves to fit in,
all the dreams we let go like the broken kite,
unlike the caged bird in that instant?
how does one put all of that together
like an index to a book whose cover page reads-
“broken, wanting to survive, help, SOS”, unauthored
or at max, authored in pen names and
each story has a title to them in the index and instead of page numbers they end with age numbers, the index reads something like this-
1. when i was beaten first as far as i can remember…………………………6
2. when my cousins abused me, sexually…………………………………….8/9
3. when i lied so my at home, wouldn’t have to be beaten…………………13
4. when my heart broke first…………………………………………………..14
5. when i chose this life back………………………………………coming soon
and so on..i wish i had a book like this to hand him, for
how could i sift all of my pain and ache and loneliness
into an hour session he lets me have in which
my body was aching for a hug, when my breath
was so pregnant with an ache i swear
my shadow could feel me crying.
No. Not again.
i am going,
listening to my body,
and i need to sleep. until
one palm clutches a knife kept under the pillow
to slit and the other clutches onto hope in thin air
trying trying trying
and another friend says, “kid, live. live.”
the knife goes back in the kitchen trolley
the air comes back to my lungs.
i am here, standing before you,
my breath
is a testimony
to a wrist which wasn’t cut,
never again.
last night i wrote a letter to my younger self
on the oldest paper sheet i had, thinking it will reach
him first than a newer piece of paper. it reads,
“dear young me,
you were brave. thank you for choosing this life.
thank you for surviving the pain. there are stories
you too have had, surviving and breathing until
now.
sending hugs enough to last you until you
come to me.
warmth, love and kindness,
me.”
shrenik mutha is a page and a performing poet who uses words as pleas to be heard, as pathways to reach people, as tears in times of death and despair, as slogans in spaces of resistance. Words for him are a way to re-member the forgotten, to bring it to the fore, to call out the silenced, to take the grime of the personal and whip it into a batter which is inviting, but as sour and dirty in it’s taste, to become the balm and wounds and heal. In his work-performance and writing, there is a clear identification of the personal as privileged and political. His work overall is an act of making the self more transparent, vulnerable and intimate to the world. His art is strongly influenced by his activism and is also a space where the body mourns what it has lost.
