Episode Thirty-seven: The Byte-Chetna Chakravarthy

Well,

I also grew up in a building.

We were about 80 or 100 kids,

All different religions,

And every festival was celebrated in my building,

In my apartment building,

You know,

With some kind of function in the ground,

In the playground,

Right?

So everyone came down together.

And when it was Eid,

You'd have Biryani coming to your house from a neighbor that lived on two floors above you.

When it was Christmas,

You'd send out plum cake.

When it was Diwali,

We would be down together bursting crackers.

You grow up in a religious household?

Like,

What did that look like?

Not at all.

Not at all,

Because my mom was Syrian Christian,

My dad was Hindu,

And they both couldn't care.

So we celebrated,

We celebrated every festival.

I also grew up in a building.

We were about 80 or 100 kids,

All different religions,

And every festival was celebrated in my building,

In my apartment building,

You know,

With some kind of function in the ground,

In the playground,

Right?

So everyone came down together.

And when it was Eid,

You'd have Biryani coming to your house from a neighbor that lived on two floors above you.

When it was Christmas,

You'd send out plum cake.

When it was Diwali,

Everybody would be down together bursting crackers.

When it was Holi,

We lived by the beach and everybody would play together and we'd go to the sea to,

You know,

Swim and then,

You know,

Go home kind of a thing.

So every festival was celebrated together.

So,

And both my parents aren't big on rituals or religion as such.

My mom being Christian on her birthday would wake us up,

Get us dressed,

And we'd go to Mahalakshmi temple.

And then we'd go to church,

And then we'd come home.

So growing up,

We didn't really have,

Religion wasn't even a conversation.

It wasn't even something where it said,

You have to learn to do this,

Or you have to learn to do that,

Or this is a ritual,

Or that is a ritual.

If there's anything that I know about rituals on festivals,

It's through friends and their families,

Not mine.

In mine,

It was a reason to bring out the bottle and enjoy.

You know,

What an incredible way to learn tolerance for other people's religions and to take away kind of the judgment and the fear and all of that stuff by just having this incredible building filled with every different religion and all the kids.

And it's so welcoming.

I still have memories of going to my Muslim friends' houses during Ramzan to break fast.

And you know,

They had fasted all day.

I hadn't,

I'd clearly been stuffing my face,

But at 6.

37 in the evening,

You know,

My friend would come running down and say,

Listen,

We're going to,

You know,

It's time for iftari,

Come up.

And you know,

We'd run up and her mom would have put out a plate for me already.

It was there.

So it wasn't like,

Oh,

You know,

Someone's come along.

I need to know it.

There was always a seat for me.

Similarly,

I had Parsi friends and on Parsi New Year,

You know,

They'd do lunch and we'd all be at their place.

Or I had another family friend in the same building.

They were catalytes and Onam,

Which is their harvest festival was a big thing.

And that aunt would cook a 26.

So it's known as the Onam Sadya.

And you eat it on a banana leaf.

And there are 26 items that will be placed on your leaf,

You know,

Right from a small pickle to the dessert.

And she would make all of it.

And we'd all sit,

You know,

All of us kids would sit first.

Then the elders would say because there was only that much place in the house.

But there was never a thing of there's less place or there's less food or there's less room or there's,

You know,

You don't understand my religion or you don't,

There was none of that.

It was so beautiful growing up to grow up like that,

Where you celebrated everything.

Every single thing was to be celebrated.

You know,

And if somebody scored well in their board exams,

There was sweets given out in the building.

If somebody was getting married,

Everyone was invited.

If somebody had a baby,

Everyone was invited.

You know,

There's a particular festival where women of a certain caste and religion,

They feed a specific dish to three or four unmarried girls.

And you know,

We'd all you know,

We'd wait for neighbors in the building to call the kids like we were and you had to,

You know,

You had to call kids who are below 13 who hadn't yet puberty.

And we learned about these rituals by being part of it in this manner,

Not by it being taught to us at home.

I don't think any any of us at hundred kids learned anything about religion at home.

We learned about it at each other's home because we were celebrating it in each other's home.

I think it's really one of the things that is most beautiful to me,

Just about your life story and your family story is,

You know,

For some people,

It's really,

Really difficult to even imagine a life of abundance where you can figure out your desires,

Because that's a really spacious place.

It's a place that's really,

For some people is almost impossible to inhabit.

But you really grew up in a family in a world where abundance was modeled for you on a daily basis in so many different ways.

It didn't come from a rich family,

Kirsten,

My grandparents on my on my dad's side,

They were jobless with with a case on them,

Right?

My grandmother's career never took off my grandfather's career never took off.

And yet,

They lived abundantly.

My grandmother was the eldest and took she took care of all her siblings in so many different ways.

Right?

So So for me,

It's not,

You know,

When when we see abundance,

We also think about money and richness and material things.

And yes,

All of that is part of abundance.

It's not the all of abundance.

There were days when my dad's business may not have been doing well and we may not have had all the luxury luxurious food that we may have had three months before that.

But there was never a day that there was no food on the table and not just for us but to feed 10 people my mom,

My mom used to literally cook like as if there's a military company to eat.

So you'd come home at two o'clock in the morning,

And you'd get a buffet.

It's like you're saying I didn't grow up seeing lack despite when I look back,

I know there was lack.

I know there were days when things were very hard.

But that's not how it felt.

Listening to your story about your family and your father and your grandparents and all the eloping and that there's just this legacy that's kind of been legacy and sort of this story about possibility and your family,

Where it seems like everyone had had a sort of spirit where they were open to the adventure.

They were open to what might happen and and those people I think are so sacred because they're open to that the the soul of the world,

Right and what the soul of the world wants from you.

And so people either walk towards the soul of the world or they see it and they get scared and they run away.

And it seems like your entire family,

They were living really they've lived really closely to the soul of the world and what the soul of the world wants from them.

And that that is an incredible legacy.

All the ups and downs and all the crazy choices.

The one thing that all of us kids learned is to live boldly.

You know,

We don't live fearlessly.

It's not that there is a lack of fear or there is there is no fear there is,

But we are very bold.

And we're very,

Very adventurous.

And by adventure,

We're not people who go and bungee jump or skydive.

But we are adventurous in the sense that we see opportunity in everything.

We see possibility in everything.

And there's this there's this spirit that we have,

Which makes us get up and say,

Okay,

We're screwed.

But what can we do?

We don't sit in the we're screwed beyond 30 seconds.

We're not able to because because it's not it's not how we grew up or what we saw.

We're not built that way.

And,

You know,

When you say when you say the soul of the world,

And that phrase is so beautiful,

I'm going to hang on to that.

Because because it's even with with what I do today,

Even the life that I live today,

For me,

In everyone's life.

When someone asks me,

Do you think this is possible for me?

Or do you think I can heal from this?

My only answer is yes.

Why not?

Thanks for listening to Episode 37 of Bite Sized Blessings,

The podcast all about the magic and spirit that surrounds us,

As long as we open our eyes to it.

And whether you choose to listen to our bite sized offerings for that five to 10 minutes of freedom in your day,

Or the longer interviews,

We're grateful you're here.

I need to thank my amazing guest today.

Chetna Chakravarthy for sharing her story with me,

As well as the creators of the music used.

Music L.

Files,

Brian Holt's music,

Kevin McLeod,

Sasha End,

Ed Key 20,

And Chilled Music.

For complete attribution,

Please go to the Bite Sized Blessings website at bite sized blessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to other episodes,

Art,

Music,

And people I think whose stories will lighten and brighten your day.

Thanks for making it to Episode 37.

And thanks for your continued support.

If you'd like to support us further,

We're always looking for reviews and ratings on Apple podcasts,

Spotify,

Wherever you find your podcasts.

Ratings and reviews go a long way to helping others find this podcast.

And thanks to those who've already done so.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Chetna.

Imagine,

Envision,

And then manifest and watch as your life changes.