Yaminie’s Underground blog

I took the Big Story and Little Story Idea to a more specific point. I chose specifically which Big Story I wanted to collect stories about….

I decided the one that I had been a part of and had some little stories around it…

The Mumbai Deluge from 26/7/05.

I was talking to a friends when both of us started discussing our experiences from that day. And the stories kept pouring (literally). I wanted to find more of these living room stories…

So that is my project…

Living room stories from that day in Mumbai

Here’s the link

http://itp.nyu.edu/~yp392/wordpress

Final Project Proposal for Collective StorytellingI loved the idea of ‘Big stories, little stories’ from this week’s reading.  I feel people who actually go through/witness a bigger story playing out tend to undermine their role/experience. I want to people to think about Big stories that they might be a part of, and then tell me their own little story about  their roles, experiences etc.Also, in the same reading the author talks about ‘own story, own words’. And hence, in keeping with the oral theme that I’ve worked on this entire semester, I want people’s stories in their own voices.So, I want to create a site where people can submit audio pieces of their story.Questions for the class1.) How should audio be submitted?How do people feel about submitting audio. Would it be easier if it was in the form of a GUI app on the mobile where you could just click-record-click send and it posts to the website? Or would it be easier for people to record stuff on their laptops and upload? 2.) How should stories be solicited?I am not sure how easy it is for people to think of a little story which might be a part of a big story. So it might be easier to give themes and people to could submit to those themes. Alternatively people could submit stories and their title should indicate the big story. And then other participants can submit audio responses with their own stories, thus forming threads of little stories for one big story…3.) what’s a good starting point (Big story) for ITP?How do I start getting stories? If I want ITPers to contribute, what Big story threads could be interesting?       

It’s spring break. It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon. I just wanted to speak to my parents.

My father usually comes back home for lunch. By 2 o’clock we would have finished our meal. He would have put his legs up on the table and would have lit his afternoon cigarette. My mom would have been preparing to go into her afternoon siesta. And I would have just been rambling about something that’s been on my mind. The servants would have retired into their quarters. And peace would descend in our household…

I feel like rambling now. But my parents aren’t around. I can’t call them cause it’s not 2 o’clock  in India. It’s late night. And they are probably asleep. I want to leave them a voicemail. I want to tell them I miss them.

Would you also like to do something like this? Maybe some of you do…So i thought of creating this audio blog where people could leave a voicemail for their parents.

This, I think works because

1.) There is something about the spoken word that gets lost when you write about it

2.) You want to do it at that moment, and not after that.

3.) It’s easier to do it on the net cause a lot of us are uncomfortable expressing ourselves on the net, then directly to our loved ones

4.) And it’s best to do it at that moment…rather 12 hours later.

How it’s work

1.) First step : A wordpress/textpattern blog which has an audio file pluggin…you upload audio files of a voicemail that you might want to leave for your parents

2.) Second step: A mobile application that let’s you record your voicemail and uploads it to the open  blog.

Mobile capability would be nice as you can then record your voicemail even when you’re out. You might want to do it when you’re having some crappy pizza some where or when you’re not getting any sleep late at night and you dont wanna reach out to your laptop…

What should I call it?

imissmyparents.com?

voicemailformymum.com?

I really got some nice feedback from the class and Marriane. I am kind of feeling attache to this piece and want to see it finshed to perfection…I will give it another shot and try and take all the feedback!Thanks guys! I love honest critic sessions like this    

This week I wanted to continue working on my previous week assignment. I had recorded a story told by my mom in a language that she was not so familiar with - English.To take the audio assignment a step further, I had added imagery and sub-titles to overcome language/technological issues (as the piece was done over the phone…the clarity wasn’t that great)

For this week, I overlayed it with my dad’s version of the same story. It was interesting to see 2 different perscpective on the same story.

PS: I noticed my obsession with melodrama for the first time…I really wanted to put more powerful background scores to exaggerate certain emotions… I think this is something I inherit form the Indian film culture which is highly melodramatic!

It’s a longish piece (3-4 mins)…I’m still working on my editing skills!

This week I continued to work on my last week’s audio piece - A story narrated by my mom.
As mentioned earlier, I was interested in seeing how language affects stories. My mother is not a fluent English speaker. English is a language she only uses sometimes to get work done. For all conversational purposes she only uses an Indian language ‘Hindi’. She, however is natural Storyteller…

Hence I recorded the most unforgettable story of her life in her words while she spoke in English.

As per feedback, the accent as well as clarity (As the recording was done over VoIP) were affecting comprehension. So, I included sub-titles for this week. Also I added imagery to address other comprehension issues that were related more to context than anything else… How else do you explain that ‘colony’ refers to a localized population with shared characteristics (in this case working for the same Company) and not to the word’s historical connotation.

I do think I went overboard with the animation. That will have to change…

Here is a link to my last week’s assignment with imagery…

I was just talking to my mum the other day and realised that she had a certain knack of telling a story… She would build the climax. Had great attention to detail. And the mundaneness of her observations would bring her world to life.I decided to get my mum to tell a story…Some really eventful incident in her life…

I incurred some issues…

A) Language…she speaks Hindi, and to get her to say the story in the same fashion in English, in which she was highly uncomfortable was kind of difficult. 

B) Long distance phone call… she was extremely caught up that it was an ISD call and that she might be wasting time. 

C) I didn’t wan’t to but she somehow got it out of me that this entire thing was for an assignment. Now she assumed that her performance was somehow linked to my grade, and that if she didnt speak correct English or didn’t say a really good story, I’d flunk!

Technically, trying to get a really good audio quality with the ISD call became difficult. It was an interesting experience, cause I’ve never really heard my mother speak English apart for a sentence here and there.Now, I am on this mission to record all her other stories as well…

Here is what I’ve got (She spoke for 10 mins for a single story….I could only edit it to about three..so it’s fairly long) My mum tells a story…

I read the map incorrectly and got to some wrong place. After much walking around this cold, cold weekend I finally found StoryCorp’s booth. Tiny, fibre glass booth with plastered poster for walls couldn’t be THE StoryCorp i was looking for. It was deserted. The girl there was filing her nails. There were no stories to be heard at that site (Tim, I read your mail much later)…And I could even see the booth as someone was inside. I waited. I had to atleast see the booth. The people who came out were equally uninspiring. Giggling girls with pink colored hair. I was thinking that this must be another one of those great ideas that died out after the initial hype.But, what I heard on their website proved me totally wrong. The stories were simply wonderful..touching upon extremely sensitive issues. You could make out some of those people were still feeling really raw…I felt, in a lot of stories, that by coming and being able to talk about their loved ones, people found a way to immortalize their feelings for the departed. The nondescript booth had a great environment actually, now that I think of. It’s a great mission…With some really great stories!  

So I did this audio piece for the storytelling class. And I recorded a story that my mother narrated over the phone. I made her do this in English..The accent was definitely a problem. But suprisingly the issue to comprehension didnt get sorted with sub-titles. I realised that there are so many words that acquire meaning which could be only understood with explaining the context….Like colony, quarters, dacoits… 

Marianne’s assignment are usually a lot of fun. We began our storytelling class with assignment to write the entire story of our lives in 400 words (read more entries here)

My mother’s daughter
Was in bucketful full of water
The doctor frowned
Had the baby drowned?
No…but she was such a rotter!

Well not really! The rotter was more for the sake of poetry. But there were bad things. First there was a huge question mark on my sanity owing to the pregnancy complications. Then, I was born dark. Very dark. For a country that still hadn’t gotten over it’s colonial hang-over, it wasn’t such a good thing. I lived with my large extended family. And since my brother was rather fair, they all loved him. (Well, he was also more lovable!). But what would a child know about such politics. The more they loved him. The more I hated them. Again, in a country where big families were cherished, I despised it. For me, it was the life inside the four walls of our room in that sprawling house of 30, that mattered. It was ME, my parents, and sometimes my brother (if he let me play with his toys and friends!). It was a lot about proving myself and seeking approval.

My parents did love me more. Kind of thing that you feel for the underdog. So it wasn’t that bad. We moved out of our joint family system. We had a 3 bedroom apartment to ourselves. I went to a very good school. I did well. I always stood first. I always won trophies. I managed to vanquish doubts about my mental condition. I was done with proving myself. I had to begin finding myself..

Four feet eleven inches tall.
The world so big. And I, so small…
Decided to leave home
And be on my own
To hear my inner voice’s call

Once, when I was driving out of the city with some friends and we stopped on the way to have some chai (masala tea). It started raining and we ran to the nearest shelter. As I stood there sipping my chai and watching the raindrops fall on the muddy ground, I realised how much I loved this.

Living alone, moving from city to city, was how I found myself. Some bits everywhere. I loved rains. Mumbai was going to be my favorite city. Family was important. I was beautiful. My brother was indeed lovable. Life wasn’t fair. But life wasn’t meant to be like that either.

I also found myself a boy. About my size. Which is a whole new other story!