What's in Your Story Bag

This week on the podcast Sadia & I continue our story. We share the story behind Meethi Boliyaan and how it has now grown into being a dream for many storytellers & artists in our countries.

This is a story that we are living now! Join on us Meethi Boliyaan Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/meethiboliyaan) or YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3FZBAM4yDKrzqI-2c3kFzw) to listen to our stories all through the pre-festival dates & on the main dates between 21st-23rd August 2020.

*#WhatsinYourStoryBag*is a podcast dedicated to *#personalnarratives* documenting the stories of our lives and how they shape us. The current season is dedicated to our * #covid19stories* I am crowdsourcing stories archiving them so they live on in times to come!

Listen in and share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you. Please pass it on to someone you know who would like to listen to it. You can write in at [email protected]

This week I bring to you the story of a friend and our friendship. Sadia and I became friends about 3 years back. It was our shared love for stories and storytelling that brought us together. As we embarked on a journey to bridge our countries through the sweet sound of stories, we invite you to know our story.

Meet Sadia Sarmad, Founder of Suno Kahani Meri Zubani (https://www.facebook.com/skmzurdu/) an organisation that is working passionately towards promoting Urdu in Pakistan. In this episode of the podcast I strive to know more about Sadia and her life in Pakistan. She tells her story and shares deep insights into the storytelling world in Pakistan. As I listened to her I discovered that our worlds are more alike than we know, for example our quest to celebrate & protect our mother tongue.

Sadia and I are curating #MeethiBoliyaan the first virtual Indo-Pak Storytelling Festival featuring storytellers from our countries. Join us next week as we tell you the story behind Meethi Boliyaan.

#WhatsinYourStoryBag is a podcast dedicated to #personalnarratives documenting the stories of our lives and how they shape us. The current season is dedicated to our #covid19stories I am crowdsourcing stories archiving them so they live on in times to come!

Listen in and share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you. Please pass it on to someone you know who would like to listen to it. You can write in at [email protected]

In this week’s episode I leaf out a story from our last year’s holiday diary. A trip to Paris, and our climb up the iconic Eiffel Tower. Yes, we walked up the tower on foot. I was afraid and the steps weren’t easy. The climb went on to become an indelible story in my life!

Why is it important? And why am I telling it now while documenting our #covid19stories? You have to listen to find out…

#WhatsinYourStoryBag is a podcast dedicated to #personalnarratives documenting the stories of our lives and how they shape us. The current season is dedicated to our #covid19stories I am crowdsourcing stories archiving them so they live on in times to come!

Listen in and share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you. Please pass it on to someone you know who would like to listen to it. You can write in at [email protected]

Are you aware of how your own brain works? How do you manage the voices in your head? How do these voices impact your sense of well-being and your life? Most significantly, are you aware of how Covid is impacting your mental health?

Taking our conversation about health further this week I spoke to Aparna Sanyal, a National Award Filmmaker whose film A Drop of Sunshine changed the conversation about mental health in India. Together with the subject of her film Reshma Valliappan (https://www.valresh.com/) Aparna started The Red Door (www.thereddoor.co.in) and organisation that believes that you and I are beyond any labels. The Red Door believes that informed peer support is a definite way to get through life and its challenges. What is life without a few challenges, right?

This episode as a bumper video (on Your Story Bag IGTV) for you to take a look at an excerpt from Aparna's film "A Drop of Sunshine". Aparna tells us about Adversity Quotient and why we all need it in life with our without covid! We also talk about her initiative Katharsis that lays the emphasis on the importance of setting your trauma out through stories.

You can get in touch with The Red Door through their FB page (https://www.facebook.com/TheRedDoor.in/)

#WhatsinYourStoryBag is a podcast dedicated to #personalnarratives documenting the stories of our lives and how they shape us. The current season is dedicated to our #covid19stories I am crowdsourcing stories archiving them so they live on in times to come!

Listen in and share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you. Please pass it on to someone you know who would like to listen to it. You can write in at [email protected]

What is fitness for you? Is it sweat, elevated heart rate, agony & aching muscles? Or is it your battle against your own mind? How is your physical fitness related to your mental tenacity? Or is it the other way round?

This week on #WhatsinYourStoryBag I speak to Kailash Menon what's his #IdeaofFitness Kailash is a former colleague turned Level-2 Crossfit Coach. He is the Founder of CrossFit Lakshya, Noida's first Crossfit Box that is home to an amazing community of folks.

Listen in to our conversation as I try and understand the true meaning of fitness and why we need it more than ever before! Don't forget to tune in to #YourStoryBag Instagram handle (www.instagram.com/yourstorybag) to watch an exclusive video of our conversation where Kailash takes me through a 90-second WOD that anyone can do! The video releases on Monday, and you get a glimpse of the amazing community that Kailash has built.

During the pandemic, if you want to work on your fitness reach out to Kailash. Visit the CFL website www.crossfitlakshya.com Connect on Instagram (www.instagram.com/crossfitlakshya) or write to him at [email protected] Tell him you heard the podcast and he may just not give you a back breaking WOD!!

#WhatsinYourStoryBag is a podcast dedicated to #personalnarratives documenting the stories of our lives and how they shape us. The current season is dedicated to our #covid19stories I am crowdsourcing stories archiving them so they live on in times to come!

Listen in and share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you. Please pass it on to someone you know who would like to listen to it.

You can connect with me on [email protected]

What is Joy? A simple 3-letter word that may have different meanings for all of us. At these times we could all do with some joy and so I asked someone who knows it really well. This week I caught up with my old college friend Gayatri Gandhi to listen to her story. Gayatri is India's first Kon Mari Consultant, the Founder of Joy Factory and the chief engineer of people's quest for joy! She literally helps people manufacture their own joy by decluttering their homes.

This podcast comes with a companion video on our Instagram page where Gayatri helps me understand the meaning of joy. Tune in to www.instagram.com/whatsinyourstorybag to see our chat. In the video Gayatri also gives a simple recipe for you to find everyday joy during the times of Covid.

Listen to her story and if you are overwhelmed with clutter in your life, connect with Gayatri through her website www.joyfactory.in

#WhatsinYourStoryBag is a podcast dedicated to #personalnarratives documenting the stories of our lives and how they shape us. The current season is dedicated to our #covid19stories I am crowdsourcing stories archiving them so they live on in times to come! You can connect with me on [email protected]

This week on #WhatsinYourStoryBag I talk to Saurav Ghosh , a man who has two jobs. One of which has come to an abrupt halt due to Covid, and the other that has flourished as a result of Covid. Here is a man who takes each day as a challenge and an opportunity to live it better.

Listen in to hear what's his idea of work!

#WhatsinYourStoryBag is a podcast dedicated to personal narratives documenting the stories of our lives and how they shape us. The current season is dedicated to our #covid19stories I am crowdsourcing stories archiving them so they live on in times to come!

If this story triggers one from you, write to me at [email protected]

My idea of work and it's place in my life is a complex story. It is a difficult one to tell as well. This is the story of how I became a Storyteller...a story that I have told before and is still difficult to tell. I owe my life to this art and what I feel about my 'work' is more than words can express. Covid has once again changed my life, however, this time I have my craft to help me sail through this turmoil.

What is your idea of work? How has Covid impacted it? We would love to share your story on the podcast. You can connect with us on [email protected]

15 years back on this day, 15th May 2005 I got my first job. The job which became my life, my identity for the next few years, till it was taken away from me. There is a right time for every story. This one is a difficult one to tell, but I had to put it in this podcast and which is why it will spill over to two episodes. For my idea of work and identity is changing all over again!

If you are working on your own ideas of work and identity, then this could get you thinking. I would love to know about you. Write in to [email protected] or connect with Your Story Bag on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter.

Last week I shared my story of how my idea of home is gradually changing in these times. Of how it’s taken me 20 years to finally accept that my idea of home is not my son’s idea of home. That it is time for me to help my son build his own attachment with his home, of making memories that will shape him to be the man he grows up to be.

Today, I want to share with you one such story that was brewing around the same time as mine was. Like me, the covid-19 has helped Shikha Garg come to terms with her own house, but in a very different way.

तो चलिए चलते हैं शिखा के घर, उसके आँगन में पेड़ के नीचे बैठ कर यह कहानी सुनते हैं...

#OurCovid19Stories is an attempt to document the positive stories that are around us. It is an attempt to make sense of the story that we are living now, you, me and everyone on this planet. It is an attempt to live in the moment, to look at life with optimism, to work on our relationships and find happiness in simple joys.

If you have a story to tell, drop in a line at [email protected]