Janci Rani was clearly nervous. She took her seat behind the mic, cleared her throat, and, in a very low murmur, began to speak. “Louder!” called someone. For a second, it looked like she would up and leave. But she didn’t. “I was left at my grandmother’s when I was just three or so. My parents wanted to pursue their careers,” she began. In the following six minutes, Rani conveyed her sense of resentment and anguish that her parents had pushed her aside. “I went back to them when I was in Class VIII, and just when I began to build bridges I was sent to a hostel.” Now 20, Rani ended her tale, “I deserved that love, but I did not get it.” Her deep sadness stayed on in the room and made many of us shift uneasily in our seats, as we waited for the next speaker.
We were in Coimbatore, at a session of ‘Stories Worth Sharing’ or SWS, an initiative started by Himanshu Poswal and Mohit Munjal, two college students from Delhi. Their aim is to “revive human contact” in a world where most people live almost entirely in the virtual space.
Come and talk
In 2016, Poswal and Munjal, both 21 now, decided to start a Facebook page to share positive stories. A few months later, while on a trip to Varanasi, the two came across a bunch of young foreigners sitting in a circle and talking. “Mohit and I observed them for a long time; they sat in companionable silence, occasionally broke into conversation. Their mobiles were kept face down,” recalls Poswal.
The image stuck in their heads. “We realised how people have stopped talking to each other.” So, on a whim, they put up a FB post inviting people to Lodhi Gardens to “just come and talk”. They were taken aback when 14 people actually turned up. “There were CEOs, artists, CA students, YouTubers... we played background music with Bluetooth speakers, people sat under a tree on bedsheets, everyone talked and listened.” Poswal and Munjal were surprised at how willingly strangers interacted.
The experiment might have ended there had it not been for an anonymous e-mail that shook them. “The writer said he had been on the verge of suicide but listening that day to the stories of others had made him realise suicide wasn’t the answer. We never thought that just a chance to speak or listen could have such an impact. We decided to organise gatherings across India.”
That’s how SWS was born. Now with two more core members — Gargi Dharmadhikari, 21, and Eshika Lohani, 20 — sessions are popping up across cities, 70 so far, and it’s even gone to Dubai and Singapore.
A Stories Worth Sharing in Coimbatore.
The stories are simple, but significant to those sharing them. Sindhu, 23, from Bengaluru spoke of her mother’s suicide. Ankit, in his 20s, shared a funny-sad story on dropping out of college and living with constant taunts from his parents. As Meghna Mehta from Karnal says, there’s comfort in sharing stories with complete strangers. “Anonymity gives courage. There’s little chance of being judged or ridiculed. We share an incident, and it becomes a story for someone.”
Lohani calls story-sharing a way of reviving human interaction. “These stories may not have changed the world, but they changed one person’s world.” That’s why Rani mustered up the courage to share. “I know my parents acted for my good. But I wanted others to know the child’s version. I wouldn’t like to think of anyone else feeling the way I do.”
Ritu Sharma is a professor of psychology at Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar. Open forum meetings, she says, serve as a ‘talking cure’, especially for those who may not have interpersonal skills or a support system or the ability to develop relationships. While such forums can’t replace therapeutic dialogue, she believes they can be healing. “Conversations with strangers can ease the human mind,” says Dr. Sharma, but cautions that they must be moderated with care.
Saroj Anil Kumar from Kochi calls it building bridges. She has found sharing stories with unknown people liberating. “They are stories we all relate to. Personal loss, the death of a pet, break-ups, affairs, extra-marital affairs... There is comfort in knowing we are not alone in our problems.”
Stories pour out — of abuse, cancer, sexuality. There are happy stories too. Encouraging, inspiring and funny. Students speak of getting drunk for the first time, failing papers. One young woman spoke of living as a Jain nun for 45 days, of growing from a privileged youngster to someone who understood the transience of material benefits. Says Poswal, “People hear of us and contact us. We look for someone to collaborate with in their city, to help us find a venue (a café, park or home), organise a sound system and so on.”
A yellow postcard
The first two sessions in a city are free. Then, they charge a nominal registration fee. “Sometimes, we set up a collection box and people pay what they want.”
Almost every weekend, there’s an SWS session happening somewhere. They aim to have one chapter in every State. At the end of a session, participants get a classic yellow postcard with a quote. “Some younger speakers have never seen a postcard, while older speakers are reminded of the days when people wrote letters,” says Poswal.
The duo is delighted with the response. It’s as if by turning off social media, they turned on another switch that got people to share the darnedest things. According to Delhi-based psychiatrist Alok Sarin, “The need for communication and the power of the connect is often startling. This, in a sense, defines all healing spaces, both clinical and interpersonal. When such strong signals for the need are clearly apparent, it is incumbent on society to address the need.”
pankaja.srinivasan@thehindu.co.in
