“Bravo, beautiful, fantastic!” the room erupted with cheers and applause as my sister finished singing her song. “One more”, a voice said in the back. “Yes, one more” many voices echoed. Didi; my elder sister, smiled her shy smile, her beautiful-dimpled-shy smile, and nodded. The room fell silent as Didi began another song – in her gorgeous melodic voice.
Growing up in India as I did, one learns quickly that India is a singing country. We have songs for every occasion and on almost every theme. Like really, you could give me any odd word – umbrella, mouse, glass, insect – or you could suggest big ideas – like love, loss, grief, birth, death – the chances are there will be 10, 20, 50 or a thousand songs on it. Those who have ever seen a Bollywood film would attest to this; our urge to sing is so strong that our movies are 3 hours long because we must have at least a half hour worth of songs in it. Unlike Bollywood movies though, these song & dance routines do not spontaneously occur on college campuses, and on city streets, and in the middle of traffic – that is fantasy – but they do represent a deeper truth – that singing is at the heart of the Indian culture & permeates every event, festival, gathering and get-together.
This has also given rise to a very specific game called “Antakshari” – which is a Sanskrit word that literally means the last letter. The way it works: One person or team sings a song. The last letter of that song becomes the starting letter for the next song. The next person or team must quickly think of and sing a song beginning with that letter. It continues back and forth offering hours of entertainment and camaraderie. I remember playing Antakshari on family gatherings, festivals, long train or car journeys, even competitively at school & college events. The game also offered an intergenerational connection – people of all ages sang, and it was something everyone participated in, not just performers. It was a game in which even I could participate with gusto. Coz even though Didi was the singer in our family, I knew as many, if not more, songs than her!
I had diaries full of songs – I mean lyrics from Bollywood songs, we had no phones then to look these things up, so I wrote & memorized them. I also had diaries full of quotes & poems and my own writings. I was a budding writer – but I didn’t know it then. I didn’t know it because no one ever told me that it was possible to become a writer, just like no one ever told my sister that it was possible to become a singer, just like no one ever told my mother; the wonderful sitar player & a writer herself, that a career in the arts, or as a matter of fact, any career was possible for her. Instead her existence in a deeply patriarchic society taught her to shut her mouth & suffer in silence. I never once heard my mom raise her voice in front of my father. But I heard her sing – as she cooked, cleaned, sewed, knitted and did the thousand thankless things she did for our family – I heard her sing songs of helplessness, heartbreak, and quiet prayer. And I learnt that songs can sometimes give you the words that you can’t bring yourself to speak. No wonder women sing so much in India…
Our mother passed away when Didi and I were young teenagers. Our father overwhelmed with two teenage daughters he didn’t really know well and unable to deal with his own loneliness, got re-married within months, leaving us to work out our own traumas. He did expect us to get on with the program – his program. When it came to our mother’s memories, it was like a curfew had fallen upon our home, no one could bring her up, there were no pictures allowed of her anywhere, she simply vanished from our lives. Our dad made it clear he didn’t want us to talk about our mom – it was too painful for him you see. So we sang – Didi & I – sang together – in our bed-room, on our balcony, on the terrace – songs of loss, of pain, of loneliness. But we also sang songs of resolve, of hope, of promise – to our mother & to each other – that we will carry on, we will survive. And I learnt that songs can be one’s shield, one’s armor and one’s fuel.
That fuel helped us finally escape the gravity of India and brought us to America. Then Didi & I sang songs of joy, of victory, of homecoming!
I sang to Didi as she lay in the hospital bed fighting cancer. I sang her lullabies and songs of sisterhood and love. When she lost that fight and her voice fell silent, my life fell silent. My heart didn’t sing for a very long time. But my lips did. 30 years of ingrained habit! So I sang again – songs I heard my sister sing, songs I learnt from my sister, songs I sang with my sister. I sang through my tears & anguish, through the years of grief into the years of relative ease.
Over a lifetime of singing, I have learnt that it does not matter how we sing, or what we sing, or even the singing itself. Whether it was my mother in the kitchen or my sister with the audience or the two young girls on their terrace – we weren’t singing, we were trying to find a voice. And even though those other voices have now faded – even in my memories, what they taught me will never fade. Those voices may have fallen silent, but they gave me my voice, they taught me to sing my own song.
Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She it the Co-Chair for Braver Angels Long Island and a trained facilitator for Crossing Party Lines moderating conversations that bring people together across their political divides. Swati is also an environmentalist and lives in a Net Zero Energy home with her husband. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com