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The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Universe of Impossible Things
00:52:11
In this hour, stories of doing the seemingly impossible; taking a risk for a chance at love, trusting a gut instinct, believing in a message from beyond and shooting (literally) for the stars. To see photos from this episode visit: TheMoth.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:02]
Apple Representative
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- [01:43]
Meg Bowles
From PRX this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles and in this hour we bring you four stories that explore the seemingly impossible. We've all had that feeling. Oh come on, that's just not possible. Maybe we're asked to take on an insurmountable task or to believe in something that seems contrary to reason. But often it's what we do in those moments that changes everything. Sometimes the impossible takes the shape of that ever elusive thing we desire. That one piece of the puzzle we believe we need for everything else to simply fall into place. That was the case for our first storyteller, Daniel Heumann, as he went off in search of his very own Hollywood sized romantic comedy. Here's Daniel Heumann live at the mall.
- [02:31]
Daniel Heumann
So I'm 20 and I have never so much as kissed a girl. And people ask me how that's even possible. And you know, the easy answer I give them is that I went to an all boys school. But the truth is that I'm just really awkward. I'm a nerd, I do not understand flirting. And really my only frame of reference for how to talk to girls are movies. Like, I can remember this one time I went to the park with this friend that I really liked And I remember sort of stopping in the park to explain to her each of the detailed reasons why we should be more than friends. In my mind, this is the scene from Chasing Amy where Ben Affleck stops the car to declare his love for Amy. It doesn't go like the movie. She has no idea that I like her. And I have no idea that relationships don't start by copying Ben Affleck. And that's when I see the movie Swingers. If you haven't seen it, Swingers is one of those 90s films that makes no sense at all. In our era of smartphones, it's mostly a bunch of guys hanging out in bars in LA trying to pick up women in an era before they could swipe right. And the hero is supremely awkward. Every time he talks to girls, he makes a complete mess of things. That is, until he goes swing dancing there. Heather Graham comes up to him and sort of breathily says, will you dance with me? They hit the floor. He twirls her around. She is enchanted. And she gives him her phone number. To me, it's magic. I decide I want to do that, so I sign up for swing dance classes. It turns out that watching a movie doesn't make me a good swing dancer. They teach us, like, the basic step of swing dancing. It's called a triple step. It's supposed to be three steps in two beats. So one and two, step, step, step. But in addition to being really awkward, I do not understand rhythm. And being the logical mathematical nerd that I am, I feel that three steps should be three beats. So I dance 1, 2, 3, step, step, step. The music comes on. I am off rhythm, I am out of sync, and I am a nightmare for anyone who has to dance with me. But I still think I can be one of the guys from Swingers. So I'm having lunch one day, and I see one of the girls in the dance class. I figure this is my chance. I go up to her, I say hello, and then instead of asking for a date, I completely chicken out and I suggest that we meet for a dance practice. And she says no. And it's just all too much. It's too many rejections. These are just the start. And I just. With each time, my insecurity grows and grows. And I figure there's something wrong with me and I just can't do it anymore. And I stop. And I no more trying to meet anyone. So I give up trying to be one of the guys from Swingers, but I still keep going to the dance classes. Okay, I'm a terrible dancer, but I am learning some other things. As I get the triple steps, I learn to do actual rhythm, and at the same time I learn to introduce myself to people. And by the time I'm on spins and turns, I'm making new friends. And by the time I graduate from the classes to going to an actual social dance, I have more confidence. I am still awkward as hell, but maybe a little less awkward. So I'm at a social dance and this girl goes by in an amazing vintage dress and I ask her to dance with me and she says yes. And I ask her to dance another song and she says yes. And we get to talking and the conversation just flows. It could be something from a really stupid romantic comedy, but I am this time not following a script. So I ask if I can buy her a drink. She says that she doesn't drink. My face just drops. But then she realizes what I meant and she asks for a Diet Coke. Before the night is over, she gives me her phone number. And what happens next isn't just that first kiss. It's first love. And it beats the hell out of anything I'd seen in Swingers.
- [07:55]
Meg Bowles
That was Daniel Heumann. That first foray into swing dancing took place 15 years ago, and though Daniel and his first love are no longer together, they're still great friends. By day, Daniel is busy running the software company he started called Perfect It. But in the evening, you can still find him swing dancing sometimes in the most unlikely places. You can see pictures of Daniel dancing in parks, on mountains, and even on the subway. That's on our website, themoth.org Kathy Olkin told this next story in Boulder, Colorado, where she works as a deputy project scientist for NASA's New Horizons, which is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as part of NASA's New Frontiers program, which, roughly translated means Kathy has a really cool job helping to oversee a mission that is voyaging to unexplored parts of our solar system. Here's Kathy Olkin live at the Moth.
- [09:13]
Kathy Olkin
So it was the fourth of July this past summer, and I was really looking forward to a day off. I had been working super hard for a long time. I was working on NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto, and there was always something to do. But I was going to take the 4th of July off, so I slept in. I read a little later. I decided to check email. Never check email on a day off. There was a message there from the mission operations manager, Alice Bowman. My eye immediately Went to it, it said that the spacecraft had gone safe. That's like the worst possible thing that could happen. I couldn't believe what I saw in the message. I'm like, how could this have happened? It was going to be a simple day, a day off. You see, I had been working on this project for more than a decade. In 2004, I had relocated my family from California to Boulder, Colorado to work on this mission. This was a life, once in a lifetime opportunity. I'm an astronomer and I had been spending decades looking at Pluto through ground based telescopes. And it's just this fuzzy dot. There's not much, you can't make out any surface details. We kept looking through these ground based telescopes, even through the Hubble Space Telescope. It's still just a fuzzy dot because Pluto's really far away. So we move. My husband starts telecommuting for his job. We move our three year old and our five year old. We're here, we're settled. All we need to do is build a spacecraft, test it, launch it, and fly it 3 billion miles to Pluto. So we built a small spacecraft, about the size of a baby grand piano. And we launched it on the largest rocket we could get, an Atlas v. It's about 20 stories tall. So you've got a small rocket or small spacecraft, big rocket, and what you get is the fastest spacecraft ever launched. It's going at 34,000 miles per hour. To put that in perspective, when the Apollo astronauts went to the moon, it took over three days for New Horizons. The spacecraft passed the moon in just nine hours. We were flying, it's an unmanned spacecraft. So I mean that figuratively. There's no one on it. So we've got nine and a half years to go from Earth to Pluto. So we've got a lot of time on our hands. We think about what data we're going to collect, how we're going to do it, and we make contingency plans. So plans in case something goes wrong. We considered more than 200 different scenarios. What do we do if this breaks? What do we do if that goes wrong? We had this huge binder full of contingencies. So I find myself on the 4th of July, it's just 10 days before our closest approach to Pluto. You see, we can't stop and orbit Pluto. We don't have enough fuel to slow ourselves down because we're going really fast. So we can't stop. We just have to go right by and take the best images we can as we're flying past. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. We have to get it right at this time. And the spacecraft has gone safe. It's called home. Which is basically saying, help me. I. I'm broken. So I rush over to the mission operations center. I settle in in the situation room. This is a conference room right outside the mission operations center. You can see the operations people through the window. But they like to keep the scientists a little separated so we don't get in the way. So I settle in. I'm sitting with my colleagues. We're starting to get information back. And interestingly, I'm starting to feel calm. That sick feeling in the pit of my stomach is relaxing because I've been working with these people for more than a decade. And everyone knows what they need to do. We all know what our responsibilities are and how to make this work. You see, we have three days to get the spacecraft back in working order. By July 7, we have to have it up and ready to start executing those commands so that when it flies by Pluto, we get the data that we've been waiting more than a decade for. So we start to get information back. But it takes a while. It takes the signal four and a half hours to travel from Earth out to the spacecraft. And then it takes another four and a half hours for it to come back so we can hear what the spacecraft had to say. So it's like a really slow conversation. Imagine you say hi to someone, then you go watch three football games and you come back and they say hi. So that's the kind of data rates we were getting. We start to find out what went wrong. We had overtaxed the computer on the spacecraft. Remember, this computer is 10 years old. My guess is that none of you use a spacecraft computer that's 10 years old on a daily basis for really important things. But we planned for that because we sent two computers. So we overtaxed the prime computer, and before it crashed, it started up the backup computer and said, call home. Okay, good, it's working, kind of. So now we're on the backup computer. We kind of know what went wrong. And we've got a big question in front of us. Do we try and get back on the prime computer or do we fly through closest approach on our relatively untested backup computer? You see, the whole time we've been flying across the solar system, we'd never turned on the backup computer. The last time it was on was on the ground when we were testing it a decade ago. So we make the logical decision to switch over to the prime computer. But we're worried because if we really messed it up, it may not start and we're getting short on time. We've been in the situation room for three days. People are taking naps in the conference room. There's pizza. Many orders of pizza are coming in, being eaten. So we don't have a lot of time left. We send up the commands to switch over back to the prime computer and then we wait. And we wait nine hours. I find myself nine hours later back in the situation room, looking through the glass window at the operations people, hoping this works. When I see people start cheering, interrupting and cheers and excited. And I hear Alice Bowman's voice over the intercom. We are back on the prime computer. Everybody was so elated. I let out this huge sigh of relief. I didn't even realize I had been holding my breath. It was amazing. We managed to get the spacecraft back in working order. Everything was going right and we had four hours to spare. It was outstanding. We start going back to our main sequence and we start getting data. It was absolutely stunning. Views of Pluto like we had never seen before. I couldn't believe the beauty and the details that were awaiting us at Pluto. We would have never expected the unusual terrain we've seen. We saw a heart shaped glacier made out of nitrogen and carbon monoxide ices. At the edge of the glacier there's huge mountains. Mountains as tall as the Rocky Mountains, made out of water ice. Pluto has a large moon named Charon. And on that moon there's a deep canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon. All of these wonders awaited us as I had previously looked at Pluto through our ground based telescopes. They were there and I just couldn't see it. It was miraculous. We had accomplished our objective of transforming Pluto from a fuzzy point of light to a complex, rich geologic world. Thank you.
- [18:42]
Meg Bowles
Kathy Olkin says after years of waiting, finally seeing Pluto up close was extraordinary. Other scientists called the mission a hallmark in human history. You can see some of those pictures on our website. The heart shaped glacier they discovered, made of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide ices. And the red poles of Charon. The images are pretty stunning. After the spacecraft reached Pluto, NASA gave the okay to have the mission extended. So now Kathy and the team are preparing to gather data as New Horizons flight flies by. Its next target, A small icy world in the outer solar system. A fun moth fact. The title of our second book, all these Wonders was inspired by a line in Kathy's story where she describes the immense beauty and complexity of all that they found. On Pluto. You can find out about all these wonders, which includes a transcript of Kathy's story@themost.org Coming up, learning to trust that voice inside your head when the Moth Radio Hour continues.
- [19:43]
Fox Searchlight Representative
The Moth is supported by Fox Searchlight presenting the new film Goodbye Christopher Robin, about Winnie The Pooh author A.A. milne and his son, whose toys inspired the classic tales starring Donal Gleason and Margot Robbie, now playing in select theaters everywhere. November 3rd. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by prx.
- [20:12]
Meg Bowles
This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Meg Bowles. In the early days of the Moth, I can remember Cold calling people to ask if they might be interested in joining us to tell a story on stage. And they'd be like, what? Storytelling? And instantly their mind would go to Hansel and Gretel or some other children's story and I'd go through the same explanation over and over. No, no, no, they're more like people share their unique life experiences. True stories from astronomers and dancers and pharmacists. I remember the moment it all started to change and the need to explain grew less and less. And these days there are all kinds of storytelling groups popping up all over the place, bringing their own spin to this time honored tradition. Often when I'm directing a show somewhere outside of New York City, one of the first things I do is reach out to one of these local organizations to to see who they might recommend. That was the case when we went to London and Matt Hill from the storytelling group Spark London suggested I speak to our next storyteller, Navrit Chola. A word of caution. Navrit's story is intense and deals with physical assault and may not be appropriate for all listeners. Here's Navrit Chola live at the Union Chapel in London.
- [21:27]
Navrit Chola
So I'm standing in the phone box and I put 20 pence in and I phone my boyfriend and he answers. So I put a pound coin in and just as we're about to speak, I suddenly feel the door behind me open. A hand appears out of nowhere and I watch it press down the switch hook of the phone. I hear the pound coin drop to the bottom and I watch this hand remove the coin. Earlier that evening I had actually been staying at my boyfriend's flat. He lived on main university campus in Birmingham city centre. He was away on work experience and he'd given me the keys to his flat, which was great for me because I lived off main campus, another site in Handsworth Wood A short bus ride away. But after spending a few nights there and a really long day in the library, I suddenly had this urge that I needed to go home. I just needed to be in my own space. I needed fresh clothes, I wanted to sleep in my own bed. And I really missed my flatmates. But as soon as I thought it, a voice in my head said, don't go. But I want to go. And again, the voice said, don't go. Now, to tell you the truth, I wasn't really sure what to make of this voice. It made me quite anxious, but I couldn't quite figure out what it meant or what could possibly happen. And I had to think about it for a while. And eventually I decided, no, I'm going to go home. But to appease this voice in my head, I decided to remove my jewelry, my watch, leave my cards behind and my cash, but just take enough money for my bus fare there and to return the following morning and enough also to phone my boyfriend from the payphone on campus. And so I set off. And it was probably about, I don't know, 8:30 in the evening. So I was studying in Birmingham, and their subways, particularly when I was there, had a reputation for being quite seedy and unsafe. And I had actually been flashed at a number of times down there. But on this particular occasion, as I walked through the tunnel, I noticed a female police officer ahead of me. And I remember thinking this was a good omen. I kind of broke my stride. So we were almost walking in tandem without making it too obvious. And then I exit the subway and I get to my bus stop. And usually, regardless of what the timetable says, I always have to wait half an hour for my bus. But on this particular evening, it comes within minutes. So when I get on the bus, I actually sit near the bus driver because I think this is the most sensible thing to do. And then I arrive at my stop, and at this point I'd say I'm pretty much on the home stretch. All I have to do now is get home. And as I'm walking along the street, I suddenly notice an empty phone box on the corner. And in that moment, I decide I'm going to call my boyfriend from there. Now, I make this decision because the payphone on my campus serves about 50 people and it's always ringing off the hook. So if I really want to speak to my boyfriend tonight, this is my best chance. I realize at this point I'm slightly deviating from the plan of just going straight home, but I can distinctly remember as I felt the door close behind me. I'm safe in here. It's a box. So I put my money in and I call my boyfriend. And then suddenly I feel the door behind me open. A hand appears out of nowhere and I watch it press down the switch hook of the phone. I hear the pound coin drop to the bottom and I watch this hand remove the coin. I don't remember dropping the receiver, but I do remember seeing it swing from side to side. Suddenly these arms tighten around me and I can feel something sharp against my neck. And I'm scared. I'm so scared my mouth is dry and I can hardly breathe and my heart is beating so fast I can feel it pulsing in the back of my throat like at any mom could just rip through. And I'm fighting so hard to stop my knees from buckling. And I keep saying to myself over and over again, is this happening? This isn't happening. Is this really happening to me? I think I'm told not to move or make a sound, but I can't be sure. He asks me for money, but I don't have any. No, wait, I do. I have 75 pence. I think he thinks I'm mocking him. So I give him my bag and he turns me around and he pushes me up against the phone. And through the sheer panic of it all, something happened to me. I was suddenly overcome by this strange sense of calm, presence and lucidity. My senses were heightened and I could feel and sense everything around me. It was like I was inhabiting every cell of my body. And I think time must have stood still or something, because after that, everything happened in slow motion. The voice in my head asks me, so how does this end? What happens now? And so I start running through all these different scenarios in my mind. Or maybe I'm stabbed and I die. Or maybe I'm raped, stabbed, and then I die. Or maybe, maybe I'm stabbed, but I go into intensive care. But then I slip into a coma and then I die. And the voice says, well, whatever way you look at this, you really have nothing to lose. But if you do survive, the police will want a description. You need to get a description. So I slowly raise my hands and I turn around to face him and I tell him to check my pockets for money, just in case. He doesn't believe me. And as he does, I look at him and I take the image of him in the color of his hair, his eyes, his clothing, his height and the Stanley knife in his hand. He looks up and he notices the Tracking movements of my eyes. And he quickly turns me around and he forces me up against the phone. His hands start to move over my breasts. And the voice says, don't move. Don't even flinch. Let him touch you. Let him think he has you. And so I do let him touch me. And for a brief moment, I can almost sense a slight release of tension in his arm. And all the while, I kept thinking to myself, how did I get into the phone box? Which way did the door open? What side of the door was the handle on? Which hand did I use? Meanwhile, his hands are traveling downwards towards my groin. And in that moment, I decide I'd rather die. I grab his arms and I use my weight to push him backwards into the door. And using my elbows, I swing to the right so that as I swing to the left, I use his weight to leverage the door open. And the door opens. And so I run. And I'm screaming, I think. But then I stop running because I realized very quickly, he's not chasing me. He's run away. I don't know what it was in that moment, if it was just the effects of the adrenaline, but all I wanted to do was find him so that I could stab him and kill him. But as I'm looking around, I don't see anyone apart from an Indian man standing in the driveway of his house next to his car. He shouts to me, are you okay? Of course I'm not okay. I've just been mugged. Which way did he go? I start running down a dark road, and the man chases me and brings me back, telling me it's not a good idea. He walks me to the phone box, where I pick up my bag and I replace the handset. And the phone rings. And so, for some bizarre reason, I answer it. It's my boyfriend. He tells me he's been trying to call me for the last two minutes.
- [31:28]
Ashok Rama Subramani
What?
- [31:29]
Navrit Chola
Are you sure? I hang up. And then the Indian man offers to drive me home. I tell him he's crazy. I'm not getting in a car with you. You're a stranger. You're a man. He offers to bring his wife along so that I feel safe. It's just that now I have to wait for her because she has to get ready and get her purse. So as I stand outside the door waiting for her, every single member of the family appears at the door, wanting to know what happened, wanting to come along for the ride. Eventually, everyone is seated in the car. Everyone except for me. There's no room for me to Sit. Someone has to get out of the car so that I can get in so that I can go home. Eventually, it's agreed that the grandfather will stay behind. The drive is excruciatingly slow owing to the weight of the car, and so claustrophobic, I burst into tears. And the grandmother says, stop crying. What are you crying for? It's not like you were raped. Oh, wait a minute, she says. He didn't touch you down there, did he? No. Well, that's all right then, because otherwise you would have been spoiled. We get to the car park and I ask to be let down. They offer to walk me to my door and I flat out refuse. And as I watched the car pull away, I realize as I stand in this dark car park, I'm breathing again. And it's only in that moment I realize I'm home. I made it home. Thank you.
- [33:43]
Meg Bowles
Navrit Chola is a pharmacist, homeopath and expert in complementary medicine. Navrit filed a police report later that night and when she gave her description of the assailant, the police officer told her that it was the most detailed description they had ever heard, which was extremely surprising given how quickly it all happened. The phone company estimated that the time between calling her boyfriend and him calling back was just under two minutes. Navrit says it took a while for her to fully appreciate that inner voice, but this experience taught her to listen, to really listen. She says that voice still talks to her, but on a strictly need to know basis. On a side note, Navrit told me that when she was at school, all the young women in her year were required to take a self defense class. And she's now thankful for it because she knows it played a role in her response. How about you? Did you survive the impossible or did you once dream of something you never thought could happen, only to one day wake up and see that dream come to life? Well, we'd love to hear that story. If you go to our website themoth.org and look for tell a story, you can find all the info for how to share it with us through our pitch line. We listen to every story that comes in and we'd love to hear yours. Coming up, a story of the fine line between being cautious and being scared out of your wits. That's when the Moth Radio Hour continues.
- [35:27]
Fox Searchlight Representative
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by the Public Radio Exchange prx.org.
- [35:40]
Meg Bowles
This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Boles and our last story comes from Ashok Rama Subramani. Ashok is a professor of mechanical engineering at Union College in Schenectady, New York. He shared the story as part of the annual Radio Love Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Here's Ashok live at the Moss.
- [36:08]
Ashok Rama Subramani
I have a PhD in mechanical engineering. I can figure this out. I did my first grade at the Seventh Day Adventist School in South India. Now, in this school, everyone got a rank based on their academic performance, even first graders. And I remember looking at my report card and next to the box that it said rank, there was a beautiful one written in red ink. I'd gotten the first rank. I didn't know what it meant, but my parents were delighted, my father especially so. My father was a strict person. He definitely scared me. On this occasion, though, he just hoisted me high up in the air. And I remember looking down upon his face, and what I saw can only be described as joy. He asked me what I wanted. I said, I want grapes. And he immediately went out and got me some grapes. That was a good day. In second grade, my mother, sister and I went on vacation while my father stayed behind to take care of some business. We visited my mother's parents. They lived in the neighboring state of Kerala. My maternal grandfather was a doctor, and him and my grandmother, they lived in this beautiful and enormous house and unusual for that time and place. They had a telephone and they had a car. And this house itself was just absolutely amazing. It was large and spacious. There was a water fountain in the front yard, and it had fish and frogs and water plants, and you could splash around in this thing. It rains a lot in Kerala. And the moss grew so thick on the walls that I could just put my little hand straight into the wall. The moss would come almost up to my wrist. And the yard had a eucalyptus tree, which made the whole place smell nice. And then one night the phone rang and my grandfather answered it. He was a doctor and not a stranger to receiving patient phone calls at home, but I could see that this time it was different. He was talking rather fast. And then other people entered the room and they were all shuffling about, looking at their feet. I could sense that something was wrong, but I really didn't know. And then out of nowhere, I heard my mother scream. And she starts crying. The next thing I know, everybody's piling into my grandfather's car and we are driving somewhat fast. It was fairly late in the night at this time. I was 7 years old, pretty confused, didn't know what was going on. After a Long drive. We arrived at the town where we lived in. But instead of going to our house, we went to my paternal grandparents house. They lived in the same town as we did. And this house was the exact opposite of the one that I just left. It was small and was cramped. No moss, no water fountain. And instead of eucalyptus, the house smelled of pond's face powder. I didn't like that smell and I didn't really like being in this house. The house itself was a beehive of activity though, late at night. But practically every light was on. People constantly milling about and moving about. And as I entered the living room, there's a lot of strangers, mostly women that I don't know. And they are wailing at the top of their voice. And they're all seated on the floor. And sitting on the sofa is my father. And for some reason he has a flower garland around his neck, which is very odd. And this cotton in his nostrils. And his color wasn't right. They told me my father had died. He was 33 years old. I was seven. And I remember my mother screaming. She had beautiful hair. Not anymore at the time. And my sister was screaming as well. Me, I kind of knew I had to cry. And I tried to cry, but the tears just wouldn't come. Instead, I felt strangely happy. I remember thinking, hey, no more strict guy. How cool. I mean, it was totally the wrong thing to feel, but that's what I felt. And then my uncle, who was standing next to me, he said, poor boy, your father has died. Your life's going to be miserable. He had no malevolent intention. He was simply pointing out the most logical and likely outcome. And then I heard my father's voice. No one else in the room seemed to hear, but I heard his voice. And the translation is rather difficult. But he said something like, what's the big deal? Why is everyone crying? I'm still here. And he said this repeatedly, but no one else seemed to hear. But I heard him. I think he was trying to reassure me that things would be okay. Things were not okay. The next morning I was informed that since I was the oldest child and the male child, I had to do the death rituals. So they put my father in this ugly coffin and he was paraded around town. And first we went to this filthy public bath where someone poured a lot of cold water over me. I still had my clothes on. I hadn't slept or eaten a long time, and I was still seven years old. And then we went to the burial place where they said they have to Shave off my hair. And this I fought, but the person with the knife was just too strong. And they held me down and I was fighting, and the blade wasn't particularly sharp. So I remember, like, tears and blood and hair falling on my lap. And then we saw the burial pit where they were going to put my father in. And I remember feeling absolutely terrified that they were going to put me in the pit as well. And mercifully, I don't remember much else from that day. And growing up in India was indeed difficult. It's a patriarchal society, and not having a father was so bad that I was not even allowed to talk about it. If someone asked me, hey, where's your father? I was supposed to say, he is out of town and I don't know when he will return. And it seemed like my uncle got it right, like my life was indeed miserable. Some years passed. I grew up, got married, moved to America. But you don't really escape from something like that. Fear and dread have always been a part of me. And in my worldview, buildings collapse, planes fall from the sky, and the ground just opens up and swallows you whole. Sometimes literally, as was the case when I was convinced that my kitchen floor would collapse. And there is a distinction between cautious and being scared out of one's wits. And I'm always on the wrong side of that divide. On a cold February morning in 2010, my son was born. And as I held my firstborn in my hands, I remember feeling this absolute dread and absolute panic. I remember thinking, I'm going to die young and this whole wretched cycle is going to repeat itself. And then it didn't help that around this time, I was diagnosed with a congenital cardiac disorder, Something that could have killed my father, but nobody knows. And then they also told me that there is a 50% chance that I could pass this condition to my son. That was just too much like not having a father and cardiac disease. All that was bad enough, but now my son has to deal with it. I just couldn't bear it at that point. And I finally started to break down and started to cry. And I would, like, hide in the basement and just cry and cry and cry. But around this time, I also made a decision. The cold, hard fact is I could die young. There is not much I can do about that. You don't always win the race with genetics. But I could put on a brave face in front of my son so long as I'm still alive. I think children need to see their parents as calm and strong. So I Decided to fake it till I make it. And a few years later, also on a cold February morning, my daughter was born. And as I held my daughter in my hands, I. I again felt dread and fear and all that, but this time a little bit less and maybe even a tiny hint of joy. And last summer, I took my daughter to the Mohawk river in upstate New York. There's a lock there where they race and lower boats. And there's this prime viewing spot that in order to get there, you got to cross this metal bridge. And as I cross this metal bridge, all kinds of fears come into my thought stream. Like, what if the dude behind me is totally evil and pushes me? What if I get a heart attack at the right moment? What if there's a gust of wind? All that. But here's the thing. Instead of staying on the side of seeing safety and playing it safe, I cross that bridge every single day. Just fake it till you make it. My daughter, she just looks on with fascination at the gears and all that. And the thought of falling into the water simply doesn't occur to her. She simply trusts that I'm going to hold her tight. And lately, I've noticed that I've been quietly doing other things that require trusting the universe just a little bit more. I routinely skip the flu vaccine. I bike in the city. Not today, but yesterday I did. And once I mailed my passport without express mail. Actually, not even priority mail, just regular mail. Just. It won't get lost. It's going to be okay. The ground won't swallow it up. And this kind of trusting the universe is like totally new concept to me. And we are reaching an important milestone in my family. Yesterday my son turned 7, the same age I was when my dad died. In two weeks, my daughter will turn three, the same age my sister was when my dad died. But as I lift them up and they look down upon my face, I don't think they see someone who is scared and terrified all the time. They simply see their father. And maybe I'm starting to trust the words of my own father from so long ago. What's the big deal? Things are going to be okay now. I'm an engineer and a scientist. And my training tells me that men do not speak to their children after they die. But to hell with science and to hell with logic. My father did speak to me. I did hear him. And he was correct. Thank you.
- [49:41]
Meg Bowles
That was Ashok. Rama Subramanian. Ashok had a checkup recently to monitor his heart condition. And while all seems to be okay, he says that at times he's still terrified he'll die prematurely. He went on to include an exhaustive list of life threatening illnesses and natural disasters he worries about, but he says the good news is he's thriving and being productive and enjoying himself. In spite of the fears. Ashok feels confident his father would be proud of all that he's achieved, especially given that he had very little parental support. Things have turned out okay, just as his father said they would. You can see pictures of Ashok and his family on our website. And while you're there, you can re listen and share the stories you heard in this hour and find out more about our live events. That's on our website, themoth.org that's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us again next time for the Moth Radio Hour.
- [51:02]
Fox Searchlight Representative
Your host this hour was Meg Bowles. Meg also directed the stories in the show. The rest of the Moth directorial staff includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janess and Jennifer Hickson. Production support from Timothy Lou Lee. Moth Stories Are True is remembered and affirmed by the Storytellers Recording services by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Rue West. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Will Holchauser, Bill Frazelle, Mose Allison and Rudresh Mahantabha. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the public radio exchange prx.org for more about our podcast. For information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth.org.