Facing Off and Facing Up: The Moth Radio Hour
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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.
But instead of reading from the Torah, we read from the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib. But more importantly for me, my grandfather would switch out my patka with a 16-foot long The Star or turban. So I shower quickly that morning, I put on my favorite Bugs Bunny sweater, and I make my way outside and I see my grandparents and I touch their feet to seek their blessings. My parents, they're so happy on this day because for them, with the turban on my head, I would be fully accepting my identity as a Sikh. That I live an honest life, I give back to society, and I remember God. And I was really, really excited, but it had also been a little while since I was three years old, and I had seen some stuff.
Before the ceremony started, I thought back to my first day at St. Xavier's School. I was five years old, and I would be attending the same school that my father had attended when he was a child. And I was so proud, and I almost felt like I had bragging rights, like kids who go to Harvard and say, oh, my parents went to Harvard. My mom and I went through our daily ritual like we did every morning. She oiled my hair, combed it, braided it, tied it into a bun, covered it with a patka. I put on my school uniform, my navy blue shorts, sky blue shirt and tie, and my grandfather dropped me off at the bus stop, me riding behind him on his LML Vespa scooter.
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