The Moth Radio Hour: "Relative Silence"

Date: September 30, 2025
Host: Jay Allison

Episode Overview

"Relative Silence" explores the complexities of family secrets—truths kept and truths eventually revealed. Through moving and often intimate live stories from India, Nigeria, Greece, and the U.S., the episode examines how silence and secrecy shape relationships, identity, and healing across generations. Told on Moth stages and from living rooms on Zoom, these stories move from playful childhood mischief to the aftermath of violence, the pain of withheld truth, and the search for connection across divides.

Key Stories & Themes

1. The Tube Light Incident

Storyteller: Anaga Mahajan
Location/Time: [03:10–10:03], Chicago (originally from Maharashtra, India)

Summary

• Anaga recalls spending summers with her notoriously frugal grandfather ("the biggest miser") in the small town of Chikli, India, where every expense was scrutinized.
• During a hot summer with no electricity allowed during the day, Anaga and neighborhood kids invent "indoor cricket" to pass the time. Anaga accidentally shatters a tube light, a rare luxury in her grandfather’s home.
• She and her brother ingeniously replace it with a non-working tube light—confident their grandfather, who never turned on overhead lights, wouldn’t notice.
• For three months the trick holds; when the tube light is eventually switched on and fails to light, Anaga feigns innocence, and the incident is never spoken of.
• Years later, sitting in the same dim room, Anaga recognizes she has inherited some of her grandfather's penny-pinching ways.

Notable Moments & Quotes

• On Grandfather’s Frugality:
  "He used to turn off the main power supply to our house before he left to work... 'Why do you need electricity in the day? Read a book.'"
  — Anaga Mahajan [04:12]

• The Moment of Disaster:
  "The ball just went in top speed and I could see... it went straight for the wall in front of me. And there was a tube light on the wall and it just hit it right in the center and splat. The tube light just broke into like millions of pieces."
  — Anaga Mahajan [06:04]

• On Covering Up and Growing Up:
  "It’s been years since that incident... I realized that I am my miser grandfather now."
  — Anaga Mahajan [09:34]

2. Keeping Grief at Bay

Storyteller: Okiyoma Irojikwe
Location/Time: [11:41–19:36], Abuja, Nigeria (via Zoom)

Summary

• Okiyoma shares memories of her loving grandparents and the idyllic rural Nigerian home where she spent school vacations.
• At age 16, after her grandfather’s death, Okiyoma is sent to comfort her grandmother, under strict instructions not to reveal the death until elders and relatives are gathered for communal mourning—a cultural tradition.
• The internal conflict of lying to the grandmother ("someone who taught me to always stand by the truth") weighs heavily.
• The secret becomes harder to bear: her grandmother has a frightening dream and asks about her late husband. Okiyoma must lie again, breaking a fundamental trust.
• When the family and elders finally arrive to break the news, the grandmother’s grief is compounded by her realization of Okiyoma's complicity in the secret. There is a period of estrangement—Okiyoma internalizes guilt and sorrow.
• Eventually, Okiyoma finds courage to reconnect, and is relieved to find her grandmother’s warmth undiminished. She reflects on how cultural customs can both support and challenge personal values.

Notable Moments & Quotes

• On Grandmother’s Teachings:
  "She taught me to cook, taught me to clean, taught me life values, Taught me to always stand by the truth and speak the truth at all times. To be kind and to be patient as well."
  — Okiyoma Irojikwe [12:31]

• On Lying to Her Grandmother:
  "I had lied to her. I had lied to someone that taught me the value of speaking the truth at all times."
  — Okiyoma Irojikwe [16:13]

• On Reconciliation:
  "In confronting our fears and facing our truths, we find peace."
  — Okiyoma Irojikwe [19:13]

3. A Family Secret Unearthed

Storyteller: Angela Darakis Taylor
Location/Time: [24:56–37:53], Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY

Content Warning: Domestic violence, graphic descriptions

Summary

• Angela grows up knowing almost nothing about her Greek grandmother, Maria, who was never spoken of or photographed.
• She loves her grandfather ("Papu"), who immigrated from Greece and whom she associates with warmth and family meals.
• At her grandfather’s funeral, Angela’s father reveals a family secret: Papu had killed Maria in a jealous rage when her father was five. After a short prison sentence, he was released.
• This secret is experienced as a profound burden and is mostly kept, but Angela’s curiosity leads to further research; she finds a 1935 New York Times article and grim court documents, confirming her grandfather’s crime.
• Angela tracks down her grandmother's unmarked grave and campaigns for a headstone. Facing family resistance, she persists, arguing the story is hers as well.
• A moving headstone dedication ceremony brings long-overdue acknowledgment and peace to multiple generations.
• Angela's exploration of her family's secret leads her to advocate for victims of domestic violence.

Notable Moments & Quotes

• The Day She Learned the Secret:
  "He told me the truth about the way his mother had died. The truth was that she didn't get sick and die when he was five years old. The truth was that my grandfather killed my grandmother."
  — Angela Darakis Taylor [26:21]

• On Breaking the Silence:
  "My lifelong secret became an obsession. I just wanted to know everything that I possibly could about my grandmother."
  — Angela Darakis Taylor [28:25]

• On Claiming Her Story:
  "This is not your story to tell... And I said, dad, I understand and I feel what you're saying, but it is my story. That was my grandmother too. She was killed at 29 years old. If she had lived, I would have known her."
  — Angela Darakis Taylor [35:07]

• Impact of Acknowledgment:
  "My dad took my hand and he leaned over and he whispered, 'Thank you, daughter. Now I don't have to feel shame anymore.'"
  — Angela Darakis Taylor [37:31]

4. The Mystery of My Father

Storyteller: Graham Shelby
Location/Time: [42:15–55:06], New York City

Summary

• As an only child growing up with his mother and stepfather, Graham is haunted by the mystery of his absent biological father, Jimmy, a Vietnam veteran.
• Graham pieces together fragments of information about Jimmy—he was a Green Beret, loved barbecue, and shared physical quirks with his son.
• At age 12, Graham’s father reappears, not in person, but via a CBS Evening News Memorial Day story about his act of compassion: writing a long-overdue letter to a slain comrade's mother.
• Watching the broadcast secretly, Graham absorbs as much as he can about this enigmatic man, feeling a mix of admiration, yearning, and confusion.
• Spurred by the TV appearance, Graham reaches out to Jimmy as a teenager; they meet, share stories, and he learns the difficult truths—family violence, war trauma, and the reasons for his parents' separation.
• Ultimately, Graham discovers the real story is less damaging than the imagined ones, and he grows to see his father as a flawed but complex person, and his stepfather as an essential presence.

Notable Moments & Quotes

• On Seeking Answers:
  "There was this one mystery I wanted to solve. It was my father. I'd never met him. I didn't know where he was. I didn't really know what had happened to him..."
  — Graham Shelby [42:34]

• Seeing His Father on TV:
  "I can barely process what he's saying, but I'm just looking at his eyes and his nose and the shape of his chin because I want to see if I can see myself in there."
  — Graham Shelby [44:41]

• The Relief of Truth:
  "The fake stories that I had made up to tell myself were worse than the real story my parents were trying to keep from me, to protect me from."
  — Graham Shelby [50:26]

• Stepfathers Matter:
  "I don't think good stepfathers get enough credit... the men who step in and do the hard, daily, often thankless work of raising children who were sired by other men. Good stepfathers are incredibly important and so are good stepmothers, too."
  — Graham Shelby [55:15]

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Storyteller | Title/Subject | |-----------|---------------------------|------------------------------------------------| | 03:10 | Anaga Mahajan | The Tube Light Incident / Grandfather’s ways | | 11:41 | Okiyoma Irojikwe | Keeping Grief at Bay / Truth and customs | | 24:56 | Angela Darakis Taylor | Family Secret Unearthed / Domestic violence | | 42:15 | Graham Shelby | The Mystery of My Father / Reconciliation |

Podcast Tone & Language

• Stories are delivered with warmth, vivid humor, humility, and at times, raw emotional honesty. Cultural references and childhood reminiscences ground the stories, while moments of pain, revelation, and reconciliation are handled with respect and gravitas.
• Speakers balance humor ("I realized I am my miser grandfather now") with deep reflection ("In confronting our fears and facing our truths, we find peace"), maintaining a conversational, confessional tone typical of The Moth’s style.

Memorable Quotes Recap

• On truth and connection: "In confronting our fears and facing our truths, we find peace." — Okiyoma Irojikwe [19:13]
• On the burden of secrecy: "It was still a secret. She was still a secret." — Angela Darakis Taylor [29:34]
• On accepting flawed family history: "The fake stories that I had made up to tell myself were worse than the real story my parents were trying to keep from me." — Graham Shelby [50:26]
• On inherited habits: "I realized that I am my miser grandfather now." — Anaga Mahajan [09:34]

Episode Summary

"Relative Silence" is a rich exploration of the ways family members—across generations and continents—protect, conceal, and confront personal and collective histories. Whether in the form of mischievous childhood coverups, culturally conditioned secrets, or the long shadow of violence and absence, these stories reveal the high cost of silence and the healing potential in finally breaking it. The episode moves deftly between lighthearted and deeply poignant tones, showing that, ultimately, confronting silence with honesty creates space for understanding, community, and even love.