IT’S NOT “KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI” 

By Ryhaan Shah

It was over twenty years ago that GIHA (Guyana Indian Heritage Association) hosted a group of our elders at a Sunday lunch. Part of the day’s engagement was listening to the stories they had to tell. One lady from the East Coast who was well into her 80s recounted the hard life they lived on the Enmore sugar estate: waking up before daybreak, walking to the backdam, working in the fields under the blazing sun, and then returning home to take care of the housework and children.
She rounded off her account with the statement: “It was no ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.’” Everyone laughed. That was the Bollywood hit movie at the time, and we all understood what she meant: life was no song-and-dance story.
She was recounting what was lived history, and this is one of the reasons that stories from parents and grandparents are invaluable: they provide first-hand accounts and insights into the past that the younger generation would only learn from books, if at all.
The stories often highlight hard work and resilience and offer life lessons that speak to profound personal transformations. That grandmother recounting her story was at that time watching her grandchildren get an education and expect opportunities that will guarantee a life more comfortable than she ever had.
These narratives can range from overcoming hardships and surviving to navigating a life of challenges that include making a home and bringing up a family in difficult and, often, impoverished circumstances. Such tales strengthen intergenerational bonds.
We all have stories to tell of growing up in different times. Our grandchildren are growing up with technology at their fingertips, technology that is developing at a fast rate and changing our everyday lives. One wonders at the stories they will tell their grandchildren.
Engaging with grandparents or elderly parents is rewarding not only for the information gained about family history and the times they lived in, but for the elderly, this kind of interest can make them feel valued as part of their family and community.
Asking questions and listening to their recount of life when they were young can be a way to help keep them mentally alert and focused and, of course, unlock stories that can transcend generations. Such conversations support healthy ageing and nurture connections and relationships between the young and older generations.
It is well known that socialisation helps to support better physical, mental and brain health for our elders, and many of us find joy in sharing life stories and reminiscing about the past.
Storytelling is a part of every culture. It is an essential human engagement and is actually recognised all around the world as an experience associated with ageing. In fact, it is a powerful therapy for overcoming depression and loneliness among the elderly – just to have someone sit and listen to us talk about our lives.
It’s a way of transferring values, traditions, and lessons learned from experience to the younger generation by telling stories that speak of hard times, getting an education, speaking up against injustice, or even the funny stories about growing up in different times.
I set off every day to kindergarten armed with just a slate and pencil. The little ones today with their full backpacks will be hard put to understand what we could ever have learned. Well, I wonder, too, if we ever learned anything when our generation’s schooldays experience is compared to the pace, number of subjects, and amount of information that now make up a basic curriculum.
One wit quipped recently that the younger generation should respect their elders because “we graduated high school without the internet or Google or AI.”
Many stories focus on the transition from traditional life, such as the change from horses to cars and the introduction of electric lights, amenities that the younger generation take for granted.
Storytelling is also important to ageing as we come nearer to facing our mortality. There is often a need to impart whatever life lessons and wisdom we have learned or just need to share family stories so that our family history is not forgotten.
Listening to these stories not only preserves history but also fosters a deeper sense of understanding and empathy for the experiences of the elderly.
My father had a fund of stories from his youth. Some were funny and others quite distressing. Most family history is a mix of such narratives, stories that have shaped our own lives in myriad ways and, as that grandmother stated so succinctly, are never all “kuch kuch hota hai”.