Chapter 1: What themes of confrontation are explored in the episode?
This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jodi Powell. In this hour, stories of confrontation. Growing up in Jamaica, I was so used to hearing the shouts when a fight was on in the schoolyard. I would often find myself standing at the edge peering in. And one day, I got caught in the rumble with a classmate. And this time, it was me in the center, fighting.
I desperately needed to get out, but I quickly realized the only way out was to go fully in. And so I fought back and the schoolyard sounds enveloped us. And before I knew it, it was over. But I was terrified because now I had to go to the vice principal and face what I had just done. I got two days suspension and more chores for my grandmother than you can count.
A confrontation isn't always like a schoolyard fight. It can mean asking yourself hard questions, understanding and sticking to boundaries, rolling up in a space that is not meant for you and owning it. It can mean finding courage.
That was true for our first storyteller, Harjus Singh, who told this at a main stage in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where we partnered with the Zyterian Performing Arts Centre. Here's Harjus, live at the Moth.
Ever since I was three years old and my hair was long enough to be tied into a bun or a juda, my mom and I had developed our daily ritual. I would sit down in front of her, my back towards her, and she would oil my hair, comb it, braid it, then tie it into a bun. She would then cover it with a one foot by one foot square cloth called a patka.
But there was another daily ritual that I would observe every morning.
I would be sitting at the breakfast table, and I would see my grandfather, an older, bearded, Dumbledore-esque gentleman, with a bun on his head, and he would take this really long piece of cloth, let's say the length of the stage, and he would hold one end of it, my father would hold the other end, and they would roll it from either side until it looked like a long pipe.
He would then take it to his room, and he would walk out, and there would be this beautiful turban sitting on top of his head. And to me, it looked like a king wearing a crown. He almost had an aura about him. And I would ask him, when can I wear that? And he would say, when you're older, when you're more responsible. I had no idea what that meant. I was three.
But all I wanted to do from that day on was be older and more responsible. So when I woke up on the morning of my 13th birthday, I was bursting with energy because today was finally the day. Today I would transition from boy to man, and it would be marked by my very own turban-tying ceremony. See, the turban-tying ceremony is not too dissimilar from a bar mitzvah or a more religious sweet 16.
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Chapter 2: How does Harjas Singh confront his identity and cultural heritage?
So one day I was at school and this kid tried to touch my patka and my joran, tried to like rip it off. And I told him, no, don't touch it. And he said, why? Are you hiding a bomb underneath there? I felt hurt, confused, disturbed, angry. Why had this kid called me a terrorist when I wasn't one? I went home crying to my grandfather.
He was sitting in his reading chair in his room, and I asked him, why do I look like this? Why do I need to wear a turban? And he gave me a little bit of a history lesson. He said, when Sikhism started in India five centuries ago, India was ruled by kings. And turbans were a symbol of royalty. Only kings and noblemen could wear them. And these kings weren't necessarily kind.
They would put people to death for no other reason than practicing a religion the king didn't approve of. So the Sikh gurus had instituted the turban as a symbol of equality, as a symbol of standing up against the injustices of these kings. This was the first time I had questioned my religious identity and received an answer I thought I understood.
But even though I theoretically understood why I should be wearing the turban, the world outside kept giving me reasons not to. So back at the ceremony, as excited as I was about putting this turban on my head, I was also conflicted with all these memories of being treated like I was an outsider. The entire family then started the ceremony.
We moved to the prayer room in our house where the Guru Granth Sahib sat atop a palki or a pedestal. My father took his place behind the palki while we sat around on the floor as he read verses from the Anand Sahib, the prayer of happiness and bliss. Then from a crumpled purple plastic bag, my grandfather took out this beautiful red and golden polka dotted turban.
It had been custom made for me, just like all the turbans had been made for my father and my grandfather before me. My grandfather held one end of the turban, I held the other, and we rolled it from either side until it looked like a long pipe.
I knelt down in front of the Guru Granth Sahib, clutching one end of the turban in my mouth, and my grandfather put down layer after layer of this turban over my head. And with each layer that he put down, the weight of the turban started to feel more real. And I realized that it wasn't just the weight of the turban, it was the weight of history on my shoulders.
It was a weight of expectations that I wasn't sure if I was ready to carry just yet. When the ceremony was over, I bent down to touch my grandparents and my parents' feet to seek their blessings. I then went into my room, stood in front of the mirror, and looked at myself with this turban on my head and I thought, I look weird.
I now was looking at myself like those kids had looked at me at the bus stop, like I was Shrek. And I realized, I'd started to question in that moment that there were other kids who I had grown up with, other sick kids, but instead of wearing turbans now, they would wear baseball caps. Instead of keeping their hair and their buns, they would now shave their hair off, and I would wonder,
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