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My Devo, an Apple original podcast produced by Futuro Studios. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts. This autumn, fall for moth stories as we travel across the globe for our main stages. We're excited to announce our fall lineup of storytelling shows from New York City to Iowa City, London, Nairobi, and so many more. The Moth will be performing in a city near you, featuring a curation of true stories. The Moth main stage shows feature five tellers who share beautiful,
unbelievable, hilarious, and often powerful true stories on a common theme. Each one told reveals something new about our shared connection. To buy your tickets or find out more about our calendar, visit themoth.org slash mainstage. We hope to see you soon. From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Chloe Salmon. On days when I'm having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, my work at The Moth has a tendency to offer up glimmers that help remind me to shift focus.
There are the stories, of course, but there are also the people, those who share and those who listen. I've seen storytellers have a line of audience members waiting to talk for a moment after the show and share their own experience. I hear people who call into our pitch line feeling alone, not knowing that others have called in with similar stories, sometimes even on the same day.
I've read emails from our radio and podcast listeners who heard a story that struck a chord and inspired them to write to us with their own connection. So many people who look for light and keep looking and listening, even when things get pretty dark. In this episode, stories of searching for points of beauty and holding on to them when we can. Our first story comes to us from Maniza Naqvi, who told it at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn. Here's Maniza live at the Moth.
So, back in December 2016, I was sitting in my office at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., feeling unmoored, disheartened. Lately, the noise has been so loud and ugly about the Muslim ban and building a wall. I'm beginning to panic. And what's a person like me even supposed to do about this? And why am I even here?
I came from Pakistan 30 years ago for my job. I get to work with governments and local governments and villages to build social safety nets, to reduce poverty. Well, that's the idea. I get to design and supervise projects. I don't actually do anything with my own hands, but I'm on the ground a lot in many different countries, and I travel a lot.
And as if flying wasn't fun enough while being Muslim, they're going to ban me too? I feel scattered all over the map. I feel like I need a change. I need someone to throw me a lifeline. That day, while I'm sitting at my desk munching a salad at lunchtime, an article pops up in my newsfeed. It's about one of the oldest bookshops in Karachi, Pakistan. Pioneer Bookhouse.
Never heard of it. But a long time ago, for a short while, I lived and worked in Karachi. I had a car of my own, and I explored the whole city, particularly the old part of the city, which has these beautiful buildings, decaying, but beautiful to me. They're in this Indo-Saracen European architectural style. You know, I think I've lived more in my imagination in Karachi
than I have in reality. But isn't that the way it is about the places you leave behind? They're more magical in memory. Anyways, this article says that Pioneer Bookhouse circa 1945 is about to be sold and the owner, Zafar Hussain, just wants to sell the property.
He says, "No one buys books." There's a photograph of the bookshop in the article, and I look at it, and I feel like I'm fusing with the photograph. There's even a sound in my head, like a "Wah!" And I feel like, "Oh my God, this is one of those old beautiful buildings, and what would happen if all the bookshops in the world start to close down? Hate is going to rise!" And I think, "I can do this, I can save a bookshop."
I think the universe is throwing me a lifeline and the next thing I know I've taken all my accumulated leave and I'm on a flight to Karachi. I've catapulted myself from the heart of Washington DC to the heart of old Karachi and now I'm standing outside Pioneer Bookhouse in the clattering, clanging, busy bazaar of Karachi and I'm looking into the shop and I can see that inside the shop it's dark and there's a man sitting
hunched over, he's bearded, he looks to me like he's despairing. I ask him if I can come in, he nods, I go in and sit next to him. This is Zafar Sahab. I introduce myself as a writer.
I tell him I've read this article and I want to help him save his bookshop, but he's not buying it. He wants to sell the shop. He says he has a family to take care of. He says his grandfather began this shop 71 years ago. He says now someone will buy this bookshop and turn it into a biryani shop or a mobile phone shop because biryani sells and mobile phones sell and nobody buys books.
I look around me. There are wires hanging from the ceiling. In one corner, there's a broken fan and a broken chair. In another corner, there's two car doors, dented, and car tires. Car parts? And there are books spilling out of bookshelves, covered in one-inch-thick dust and grime.
and this crumpled newspaper lying in heaps and heaps all over the floor and this tiny little bookshop is lined by bookshelves. Zafar sahib says, "These are made of teak and when I... oh and ah!" He says, "Well, if you think this is beautiful, wait till you see the upstairs." And he points to the stairs in the back. I go up the stairs and suddenly I'm in this large cavernous space
of three huge rooms lying in the dark. And the condition here is like the bookshop downstairs, only worse. But it appears magical to me. It's a quiet space, a silent space, a waiting space. I feel like it's a waiting for me kind of a space. And in the back room,
There's a gigantic table just groaning under piles of books and piles of pamphlets and piles of cloth and piles of paper all covered in dust. And I think, this room could be a book reading room and that one could be an art gallery. And I go rushing downstairs and I sit next to Zafar Sahib and I say, "Zafar Sahib, you might think you're invisible. You might think no one sees you or sees your shop here.
Just think what would happen if all the bookshops closed down. Something about my impassioned plea moves him apparently because he agrees for me to come back the next day and talk to him some more. So I go back the next day and the one after that and the one after that until Zafar Sahib relents and agrees for me to sort out his whole shop and show him that it can work as a bookshop.
appreciative and grateful for his kindness, for his generosity, for his indulging me this way, to let me into his shop in this manner. That night, I emailed back to Washington, D.C.,
and request permission to telecommute. And when it's granted, the next day I show up at Pioneer Bookhouse with brooms and dusters in hand and ask Zafar Sahib which bookshelves and which floors I can start cleaning.
And I just do nothing without his permission. And as soon as it's granted, I get started dusting and cleaning and sorting. And as I do this, I talk and talk and talk and talk while Zafar Sahib sits at first, staring out at the street glumly.
But I ask him a hundred questions about the Pioneer Bookhouse's history, the history of his family, the history of the city, until he finally melts down and starts answering my questions. And as he talks and as I clean and sweep, I begin to realize and appreciate even more the troubles that Karachi has gone through, the troubles this city has faced. There's a war going on in Afghanistan next door.
And the fallout has been on this city. It's a wonder that shopkeepers have been able to keep their shops open, let alone hold on to their properties. And there's so much distrust. And I know, I must seem like an oddity here, a woman of my background, sweeping and dusting and cleaning in the bazaar. But I just ignore that and ratchet up my clueless, can-do spirit. I'm going for endearing.
Even so, one day a shopkeeper in the neighborhood comes in, points a finger at me and says, "American agent! FBI!" I'm so startled. "FBI?" I say. "Wouldn't CIA make more sense here?" Everybody in the shop bursts out laughing. In the coming days, I make friends with the shopkeeper and other shopkeepers as well.
street vendors and a traffic cop or two. Every day at least two people come in to have lunch with Zafar Sahab and his son comes in after college as well. And everybody eats out of a communal plate so that if there are four hands dipping into the plate, the fifth is mine. And this means the world to me. I feel so welcomed, so appreciated.
So much like I matter here, and I'm getting to do things with my own hands. And as I sweep and dust and clean in the shop, I feel like I'm spinning and dancing in the bazaar. I mean, what could be better than this? I'm a world banker by night and a sweeper in a bookshop by day.
But I know I could show up here tomorrow and Zafar Sahib could tell me that he sold his property and that Pioneer Bookhouse is destined to become the good luck biryani shop. But until that happens, I'm going to try my darndest to keep this shop open.
It takes me about 20 days to sort through the whole shop. Every day I'm covered with dust and grime from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I'm lifting loads and loads of bags filled with paper and books that need to be discarded and sent to the recycler. I can't do everything myself.
I need to get an electrician, for example, to fix the wiring and to put in new lights and new lamps. I get these embroidered caps from the bazaar next door to put in between the books in the bookshelves. I get these glass bottles, green, red, yellow, blue, from the old bottles bazaar nearby to put in a glass shelf in the window to catch the light. I get chairs to put around the reading table. And those car parts?
Zafar Sahib never lets me throw those out. But shoved in the corner under the right light, modern art? But when the lights go on, when the lights go on, the place is bathed in golden light. It has such great bones. It looks so beautiful. Even Zafar Sahib is smiling and he's amazed. And I think,
Maybe that's all it takes for someone to come in and turn the lights back on. In the coming days, we plan to have a book reading. At least 25 people will come. We plan it down to the snacks and the tea we are going to serve. And I scrub the floors as much as I can upstairs, and I scrub them and scrub them until I learn this important lesson.
that dust is a reality in Karachi. I can dust and clean all I want and it's going to come back. When the book reading begins, I ask Zafar Sahib to sit and enjoy the guests in his house and to enjoy the book reading. I tell him I'll go downstairs and mind the shop with his son. I go downstairs and I sit there looking out at the street and in this moment I feel so overwhelmed. What could be better than this?
The house is full of people. There's a book reading going on here for the first time. And I think, you know, this boat might be afloat. This bookshop stands a chance. It's been five years and Pioneer Bookhouse's doors are still open. And the bookshop is in the hands of the family that has owned it for 76 years now. And me?
I feel like all my scattered parts came together when the noise and ugliness got so loud, I focused in on a point of beauty. You know, I may have rescued a bookshop, but I'm pretty sure the bookshop rescued me.
That was Muneeza Naqvi, a Pakistani-American writer who is also, fittingly, the founder and CEO of Pakistan's first e-book platform, The Little Book Company. She's the author of five novels, including A Guest in the House, which chronicles her time at Pioneer Bookhouse and delves into the history of Karachi. Great news, the bookstore is still going strong.
They have book readings, art exhibits, Pioneer Bookhouse souvenirs, and are even a stop on a local history and heritage tour. Zafar Hussein's son now helms the ship.
But Moniza returns every year to visit and say hello to her old friend. The theme for this episode, and spoiler alert, the title of the moth's newest book, A Point of Beauty, sprang from Moniza's story and her experience of searching for light at a time when she had trouble seeing anything but the bat.
Her work at the bookstore helped give her momentum, and she says it showed her that doing small things, like cleaning up a bookshop, listening to strangers tell their stories, talking about books, and encouraging hope, can create big ripples that eventually lead to good.
To see some photos of Pioneer Bookhouse, head over to themoth.org. Next up is Michael Watson, who told this story in Chicago, where we partner with public radio station WBEZ. Here's Michael. Thank you.
So I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville, Kentucky, I should say it correctly. Went to an all-boys high school, a very athletic high school, and the kind of high school that says, please get involved in different things. So I thought, for sure, I'm going to be an athlete. This is what I want to do. This is the kind of school it is. So freshman year, I try out for the freshman high school basketball team. Of course, Kentucky's a basketball-crazy state. I'm going to be an athlete.
Of the 400 kids in my class, I think 200 of us tried out for the basketball team. Of course, I didn't make the team. In retrospect, I was probably like number 150 on that list.
Not deterred so spring rolls around that freshman year. I'm like I will try out for the tennis team like Kentucky likes basketball No one here's played tennis. I've played a lot of tennis growing up play with my buddies in the park I thought I was relatively good at playing tennis. So I tried out for the tennis team and went to the first Info session and what they did there is they said hey welcome here. Here's a sign-up sheet Please put your name and your rank in the state on
I'm like, "Ranking the state? Here I am, a freshman. No clue that a kid could even have a rank. How would you even go about getting a rank?" This was just totally-- I was in a state of shock. I didn't make the tennis team. Not even close. So time goes by.
not making the basketball team, obviously didn't make the tennis team. A note comes up, says chess team is looking for some players. I'm like, ah, I played a lot of chess in grade school. I was pretty good at chess. I played with all my buddies at chess. I thought I was an all right chess player. Like I'll play the chess team. So I show up for the chess team, first practice, go in. They're like, I'm glad you're here. By the way, what's your chess rating? I'm like, two things go through my mind. The first thing is, what did I do with my childhood? Did
Why didn't I get rated? Was I supposed to get rated when I played Kick the Can and Ghost in the Graveyard? Did I miss out on something here? And the second thing I thought was, this is bogus. The chess team's going to take me. So I basically made myself be on the chess team. I was curious about these rankings. How do you get a ranking? Well, you sign up for the U.S. Chess Federation and pay your dues and go to a tournament. So I did that right away just to see what it was like. Went to that first tournament. You know, thought I was pretty good. Lost all four games. Just boop.
All four games we played, like, whoop, I won't do any of those tournaments. Turned my attention back to the high school chess team. Luckily, there were some players on the team who were really good players, and I learned a lot from them. And over time, I would say I got okay. And some of these players were good enough that they finagled their way into the national high school championship. So they thought, and we thought as a team, like, we can finish in the top 20, and if our good guys did really well, there was a good chance that we were going to finish in the top 10. So off to the tournament we went.
I was an okay player. I wasn't going to impact. It was going to be the top four people in the tournament whose scores mattered. Only if the fourth, fifth, and sixth player did terrible would my score matter. That's about how it played out. Our top four people did great. We had a great tournament. I did okay. I think there were 700 kids that were in the national tournament. I probably finished 400, 450, somewhere in that. Okay for me, but our team did great. At the awards ceremony,
We're all in the back, and we're kind of talking, and we're saying, you know, we're solidly in the top 20, and we're trying to figure out how high up we are, and we're all excited. And, you know, they're doing the awards, and they always start with the lowest awards first. And so we're not really paying attention. And all of a sudden, they make the announcement. They say, all right, in first place for the 900 rating and under, Michael Watson. That's me. I'm like, holy...
My chess team, they made fun of me so much. So if you don't know chess scores, 900 means you basically don't know the rules. You just sort of...
You just sort of showed up. And so they were making fun of me for that and making fun of me for just the embarrassment of having to walk up to get the award, knowing that I had a 900 under rating. So I got the award. But those guys, you know, to their credit, the captains of the team, the good players, they're like good marketers. And so they wanted to go back to school and, you know, kind of show this football crazy school that, ah, you know, we're actually, you know, the chess team's pretty cool.
And so by the time we got back to school, the way the announcement went was, hey, our chess team was in the national tournament. We came in 15th in the whole country. We had two people that finished in the top 30 or so in the nation. And in one of our rating classes, we were the national champion.
Michael Watson lives in Chicago with his wife and their three kids. He also runs a blog called Mike Talks AI, where he explores practical AI and explains how to apply it to businesses. He stayed on the chess team after that first year, and they even had another good showing at nationals.
though he says that it was, again, no thanks to him. He's retired from playing chess and instead plays basketball every Sunday night. Here's hoping that they don't require state rankings. ♪
After the break, a wrongfully convicted woman finds life on death row when the Moth Radio Hour continues. ♪♪♪
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Chloe Salmon. In this episode, we're listening to stories on the theme of a point of beauty, which, as I mentioned earlier, is also the title of The Moth's new book. More on that in a bit.
Thousands of storytellers grace moth stages every year, and the stories they share run a wide range. Hilarious, weird, heartwarming, and, of course, heartbreaking. When I hear stories that fall into that last category, I found myself surprised again and again by the unexpected rays of light that the tellers can let into even the darkest of experiences.
One of the most poignant examples of this I've witnessed comes from our next storyteller, Sunny Jacobs, whose wrongful convictions set her life on a path she never predicted and who found beauty in the unlikeliest of circumstances. She told this story at Union Chapel in London. Here's Sunny live at the Moth. I spent my 28th birthday in a prison cell, six steps from the
solid metal door to the toilet and if I reached out both my arms I could touch the walls. When I was 27 years old my husband, my two young children and I took a road trip to Florida and that's how we ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person and when two policemen were killed everyone was rounded up and arrested and taken in and we thought surely
that when they realized that we were totally innocent, we would be released. We thought that the American justice system would function the way it was supposed to function, the way we were taught to believe in would all our lives, but we ended up being sentenced to death. My husband was sent to the men's death row, but at the time, there was no death row for women in Florida, so they put me in the women's maximum security prison
in a building that was completely separated from all the other prisoners that was normally used for discipline. And that's where they told me that I was to be kept until they decided to kill me. I was kept in complete solitary confinement. I wasn't allowed to interact with any other prisoners and the guards were under instructions not to speak to me. I spent the first weeks just pacing back and forth, back and forth in the cell.
angry, afraid, and completely distraught over being separated from my children. We'd never been separated before. My son was nine years old, and my daughter was only ten months old, and just a baby, still nursing. So the injustice that happened didn't just happen to me, it happened to my whole family. Fortunately, my parents were able to get custody of the children. Visits were very infrequent, and...
It was just devastating. I only got out of my cell twice a week for a brief shower, and then they put me back in the cell for another three or four days. I only had two books in my cell. One was a law book, which was useless to me at that point in time, and the other was the Bible. And I read it every day because it was a book of wisdom, and it always seemed to tell me something that I needed to hear.
On this one particular day, something I read in the Bible told me that they don't actually get to say when I die, that that isn't really up to them. And I realized that my life still belonged to me and that what happened inside of me was up to me, not them, and that I didn't have to live what might be my last days in fear and anger and misery. And so instead,
I figured, well, you pay the same price, you may as well be positive. So I changed my cell into a sanctuary and I began to do my spiritual work. I began to see the guards as my servants and I started doing yoga, meditation and prayer. Every morning and every night I would meditate and I would send my energy out to my children and I would surround them with my love.
and I would tell them good morning and good night. And I really, truly believed that they could feel me. As I said, visits were very infrequent. My parents could only bring the children during school holidays, which was like four times a year. My son, after the visit was over, he would cry and he would cling to me. And he would say he would rather stay with me in my cell than to have to go home. My daughter didn't even know who I was. She was 10 months old when we were separated.
And my parents used to show her a picture of me, and they'd say, see, this is your mommy. And then when they'd come, they'd show her that I was the person in the picture. It was very difficult for the whole family. I got letters from my husband, Jesse, from his death row, and he'd try to cheer me up and tell me that everything would be okay. And one of his letters, I found out that the men had far more privileges than I did,
Then, in fact, they got four hours a week outside of their cell where they could interact together. They had commissary. They could crochet in their cells. So I filed a federal lawsuit, and I won the lawsuit, and they had to allow me to have at least those four hours a week outside my cell to interact with other people. So that's when they moved me.
They sent me to another women's prison that was newly opened, and they put me in the medical unit. Again, in total isolation, there were four cells, but I was the only one in there. And this time, there was a shower and a toilet attached to the cell, and a window, a really nice window. It still had bars on it, but it was a big improvement. And my neighbors were the ants.
The ants found their way through a crack in the window. They'd make a straight line down the wall. And then I would put out a little pile of crumbs and I'd surround it with water so that they couldn't get in the rest of the cell. And it was just so beautiful to watch them. And then I was able to go out on my walks, which was a big improvement as well. And I should tell you, the food wasn't very good.
And if there was a salad, all I got was the dregs of the salad, a few pieces of lettuce and maybe a seed of a tomato. But a seed is a garden. And so I saved the seed. And then I asked the nurse that night for Tylenol because Tylenol came in a little paper cup. And I saved the cup. And then when the nice guard came on, I asked her if I could go out and get some earth in the cup.
What could it hurt? We're all human after all. So she let me. And I brought the earth in and I planted the seed. And I put it in the window. And I watered it. And it grew. And after a while, I had a seedling. I was able to bring life to death row. And it was fantastic. It made me feel so good to have something to nurture.
and to put love into, and all that I couldn't give to my own children. And so the little seedling grew, and when it was big enough and strong enough, I asked the same guard when she came on if I could maybe take my seedling out and plant it where I could see it from my window. At least it could be free, even if I couldn't. And she said, okay. So we took it out and we planted it. And then every time I went out, I would water it.
And every morning I got up and I looked at my little seedling as it grew and grew and it got little flowers and then it got little fruits. And after a while, there were tomatoes. And the guard, I asked her one day if we could just pick one of the tomatoes. And she said, okay. And I took it into my cell and I ate that tomato and it was delicious. It was the best tomato in the world.
And I saved the seeds, of course. And I did the same trick. I got the cups and I got the earth and I planted the seeds. And when they were strong enough, I put them out and I planted them. And I had a whole garden, a whole garden of tomato plants, my babies. And I nurtured them and they grew. Miss Duncan. Miss Duncan was another inmate. She was an older woman. Nobody liked her. But she had money and she could buy favors, things.
One morning I looked out to see my babies and my grandbabies and there was Miss Duncan with a bucket. She looked up at my window, I guess to see if I was watching. She wouldn't be able to see me. And then she started pulling up my tomatoes one by one. And I screamed and I cried. And every once in a while she'd look up again. It was as if she could feel me. I was sure she could.
She had wanted, she saw that I could have this little garden. She wanted it too, but the administration said no. So I guess she figured if she couldn't have it, I couldn't have it either. And one by one she pulled them up until she had them all. All the emotions and the pain and the helplessness and the anger over being separated from my own children came back over me again. So I did yoga, meditation and prayer.
in order to deal with the emotions and the physical effect that that had on me. After five years, I won the first of many appeals and my sentence was changed from death to life. And I was moved into the population of the prison, which for me was a huge improvement because I could call my children on the phone for the first time. We could hear each other's voices on a regular basis.
and they gave me a job in the kitchen, I guess because they knew I liked tomatoes. About a year after my sentence was changed from death to life in prison, my parents were so relieved that they didn't have to worry about me being executed, that they decided to take a vacation. And the plane crashed, and they were killed. My children became orphans again and went into care.
And after a short time, I lost touch with them completely. And in the 15th year, Jesse was scheduled to be executed. And they gave us a phone call. There was to be a 10-minute phone call. And I didn't know what I was going to say. Like, what do you say? And we just said, I love you, until the phone went dead and he was executed.
About two years after that, with the help of friends and pro bono lawyers, and after many appeals, we were finally able to prove not only my innocence, but Jesse's innocence too. But it was too late for him. And I was released. When this happened, I was 27 years old. I was a wife and a mother and a daughter.
And when I finally was released, I was a widow and an orphan and a grandmother, and I was 45 years old. But life goes on. And so I eventually was able to reunite with my children, although they were both bigger than me by then. And I became a yoga teacher, and I traveled the world speaking against the death penalty. And Miss Duncan, well, she died in prison.
But by then I had compassion for her because compassion and forgiveness were what truly set me free. Not just from her, but from all of the adversity. Because peace is the way and love is the answer. And that's the legacy that I wanted to leave from my children. And I still grow my garden. I plant my tomatoes every year and I save the seeds. And when I die, I want them to plant tomatoes on me
so that I can still be part of things. Thank you. That was Sunny Jacobs. She's an author and human rights activist who lives in West Ireland. Her book, Stolen Time, focuses on the fallibility of the U.S. justice system. She recently received an honorary doctorate of law from Brighton University.
It took 17 years for Sunny to be able to prove her and Jesse's innocence. And there wasn't a day that went by in which they weren't fighting for their freedom, along with pro bono lawyers, friends, and family. After her release, Sunny became a leading opponent of the death penalty and traveled the world to tell her story.
Through her work, she met fellow exoneree Peter Pringle. They fell in love, married, and together founded the Sunny Center, which works to bring healing to people who have suffered the injustice of wrongful conviction. She says that she still has her nurturing mothering spirit for plants, animals, and people alike, and that self-nurturing is taking a bigger role in her life these days.
She still tends to her garden from beginning to end, from the planting to the growing to the cooking and the eating. And she finds love in every part of it. To learn more about Sunny, her case, and the work she does now with the Sunny Center, head over to themoth.org. ♪♪ In a moment, a homesick young man takes a beloved recipe into his own hands when the Moth Radio Hour continues. ♪♪
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the public radio exchange PRX.org. This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Chloe Salmon. In this episode, we've been listening to stories of finding moments of grace in difficult times.
Our final storyteller found his moment while on a quest to make some bajiya, a yummy fried snack made with onion and lots of herbs and spices. Jitesh Jaggi told this story in Chicago, where we partner with WBEZ. Here's Jitesh, live at the Moth. Chicago Springs are so unpredictable that it looks like in the same day I'm packing to be an international spy and a surfboarder.
It was one such unpredictable spring day last year when out of nowhere it started raining and that opened the floodgates to a lot of memories from my childhood in India, Bombay. We have the monsoon season that marks the end of summer and the arrival of
of bhajiya. This deep fried, savory fritter that my mom cooked every time it rained. I would be bent over a textbook sniffing for when she was done frying the bhajiya. Experience that for 20 years and you start to develop a Pavlovian response with the rains. The moment it starts pouring, you start salivating. Warm, crisp bhajiya.
And that is what I felt that rainy spring day in Chicago. And this deep ache rose in me that home was so far. So was the mother. So was the bhajiya.
So I got an idea and I recommend you do not try this at home. To fry my own bhajiya. Now, I don't cook. I wash, clean, scrub, but cooking isn't really my thing. So after I spend a few minutes trying to locate the kitchen in my own house, I gather all the ingredients together. Onion, flour, suspicious oil, green chilli, herbs, spices. And then in my mind's eye, I start to retrace the steps of my mother going about cooking her bhajiya.
I put the oil on heat and prepare the batter. I awkwardly chop the onions. After I clean the blood from my fingers, I chop the green chilli. Then I mix in the spices. Now, Indian mothers do not follow the metric system or any other measurement unit for that matter. Depending on the day and her mood, she will measure a few tablespoons and nod when she is satisfied. Now, that is hard for me to replicate.
But the rain won't last forever and I'll work with what I have. As soon as I slip the first of the batter in the roaring oil, I hear thunder. The rain was now in full force and that made me so happy. It's like that ache in my chest, it dulls with each sizzle of the batter. I remember my mother saying that the bhajiya is done when it turns golden brown. Like you!
And I start reminiscing about our days in the monsoon and suddenly I remember Garam Masala. The thing that gives it its flavor. It literally translates to warm spice. I try to look for it, I sniff it out, I can't find it. I remember mom packed it for me during my last visit home. So I rushed to my suitcase, I open it left, right, throwing shit at this point. And finally, I get my hands on a packet of Garam Masala. And then I hear...
I run back to the kitchen and it looks like lightning struck inside the house as well. The golden brown phase of the bhajiya had longed past. It was now coal black. I take a bite and it tasted like what a rusty nail would. I look outside and the rain had dried up. I empty the pan in the trash. That ache in my chest that I had hoped to dull with this experiment was now knife sharp.
So I do what any American in my situation would. Get a takeout. I take a walk in my neighborhood of Humble Park. I come across a Puerto Rican joint. I enter. Dude behind the counter sees me. Starts speaking to me in Spanish. I apologize. I can barely speak English. He says he could swear I look like some of his Puerto Rican cousins back home. That got me smiling and laughing and I kind of shared the whole bhajiya fiasco with him. Instead of sympathizing with me, he offered to cook me something.
He called them Aranitas. They're like Puerto Rican bajias but made of plantains. I couldn't believe my eyes as soon as he presented them to me. They looked exactly like onion bajias. They had these crispy flakes going everywhere. Yes, he said, Aranitas translate to little spiders.
As far as I was concerned, that ticked all the boxes that I was looking to enjoy that day. Crispy, deep fried in suspicious oil, flavored with spices and cooked by a diaspora that had a personal story behind it. He said he hadn't seen his mother in six years. Couldn't afford to. Now standing there, as it begins to lightly drizzle outside,
over a plate of fried food with someone who knows exactly how you feel inside. If that doesn't feel like home, then there is no such place. I was home. Jitesh Jaggi is an immigrant from India and four-time Moth Story Slam winner living in Chicago. He ended his career in finance one day when he lost all the data that he forgot to save on an Excel sheet and realized that he just didn't care.
That tipping point led to him becoming a writer, and he's currently working on a book of essays. This story is part of his sold-out one-man show, Suitcase Stories. Jitesh finally figured out how to make bajiya successfully. Though he says it hasn't been quite as good as his mom's, it does the trick when he needs a cozy day snack. This episode of the Moth Radio Hour has been all about finding points of beauty, no matter the situation.
If your story appetite is still going strong, good news. The Moth is coming out with a brand new book anthology. The title is, you guessed it, A Point of Beauty. True stories of holding on and letting go.
And you've gotten a sneak peek. The first story you heard in this hour is included, along with 49 others that have made the journey from the stage to the page. It'll be out in the world on March 19th. That's it for this episode. Thank you to our storytellers for sharing with us and to you for listening. I hope you'll join us next time.
This episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Chloe Salmon, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show, along with Sarah Austin-Ginness. Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Cloutier, Leanne Gulley, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Caza.
Most stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Bill Frizzell, Yousef Latif, Lemon Jelly, the Martin Hayes Quartet, and Neil Mukherjee.
We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, which we always hope you will, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.