Hi everyone, this is Mark Selinger, producer of the Moth podcast. Today, we wanted to give you something a little special, a treasured episode from our archives. We think it'll take you on a fun, surprising journey. Also, the Moss spin-off podcast, Grown, is up for a Signal Award. If you haven't listened to Grown before, check it out. It's filled with stories all about growing up. And if you have listened, we'd love for you to vote for it

for the Signal Awards. We'll have a link in the podcast show notes, or just go to vote.org

dot signalward.com. Without further ado, here's Dan Kennedy.

Welcome to the Moth podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy, and today we have two stories on the podcast

about finding your way through the thick of life and coming out on the other side,

which is pretty much what life is, right? You think you got the ups and downs figured out,

and then you realize

it's going to throw the sideways at you and all the other stuff. Our first story comes to us from

Om Chowdhury. He told this at a story slam in Pittsburgh, and the theme of the night was Jokers. Here's

Alm. So this is a story of two brothers, me, myself. I'm 29 years old. And my brother, Raj, who

was about 23 years old. And we grew up in north of India and growing up, let me give you a

little bit of an idea about my childhood days. Growing up in my country was no different from

like growing up in ancient Greece. Like

imagine yourself you are in Sparta where like if you are a guy you're not supposed to cry.

You're not supposed to shed tears. Your tear ducts are, your tear ducts are not functional. If

if you are going through something physical or emotional or mental problems, all you have to do is

like put on a red cape and move on. And it was, that was my childhood pretty much growing up. And

over the course of time, it presented with us a lot of problems, also gave us a really unique

signature. Now, I don't have much, I mean, I do

have memories of my parents, but my younger brother, unfortunately, doesn't. And it's, it, all,

all the cultural values that I grew up with, like immediately came into perspective one

single day when I was 11 years old and my brother was five years old.

...