(Last Updated on Mar 20, 2024)

This is a story of two wishes.

I always loved going back to Kerala for my vacations. Since we always lived outside Kerala, it was a long journey that had to be made – but we still went at least once in a year. One of the things that I really looked forward to was spending time with both sets of grandparents – especially my maternal grandmother. She would tell the best of stories and it was a daily ritual of sorts. There used to be a power cut every day in the evening and we would all go and sit outside the home, looking up into the clear sky with every star visible – almost the entire town was pitch dark during this time. This was also the time when she would tell a story. It would usually be from one of the epics – Ramayana, Mahabharata or one of the Puranas. Sometimes, the story would go into such detail that we would have episodes stretching across days! I wish I could keep hearing her stories every day.

Fast forward to adulthood. Each time I visit Kerala, I feel like the beautiful world that I had known is fast going away.  People have aged, many have moved on from this planet. And with them, the places they used to live in have also changed. The pristine old temples which had mud and sand around them have all been covered up with tiles. Old homes with tiled roofs have made way for multi-storey concrete homes. Small pathways along rice fields have become tarred roads. Gardens and orchards have been swallowed up by giant bungalows. Places are now unrecognizable from what they were about 15-20 years ago. And their stories are also fading away. The older generation acted as the connecting forces that brought the families together. They grew up together and had a bond that the later generations could never create amongst themselves. I wish I could capture the essence of our people and places so that time doesn’t fade them away.

As I was sitting at home (now in Kochi) in 2020, I decided to make these 2 wishes come true. I would write a book along with Ammumma (my maternal grandmother) and capture stories from her childhood of how different the world used to be at that point. She would speak and I would take notes. We gave it a shot, but it felt very artificial and awkward and we gave up. 

Attempt #2. I decided to make short notes whenever I heard some interesting story in the conversations we had at home. I managed to get a few pointers but everything needed a lot of context and background building. It was too unstructured.

Attempt #3. Almost 3 years have passed. My Ammumma has become a Muthassi now (great-grandmother). Now, I’m feeling it stronger than ever – the urge to capture the stories from a time that my son would never be able to fathom. The stories of his family and where they came from. I still don’t know how I could do it.

One day, I came across a post by Sahil Bloom in his newsletter (you get some really good thought starters from newsletters – subscribe to this one right away!). He spoke about how his mother captured stories of his grandmother into a book. They did it with the help of a student who worked as the ghost writer. Every week, she would meet the lady and speak to her. After many months of recording, she would go back, transcribe it and then pick out stories which could go into the book. Finally, I could see an actionable plan!

I reached out to a few agencies and pitched the idea. A couple of them got back with quotes and samples of their works. It seemed very much like a formal biography writing where they would have only 4-5 sessions, gather highlights and milestones from the person’s life and put that into a bunch of paragraphs and bullet points. There was no life in the way it was being done – that would defeat the purpose. I discussed this with my mummy and she said we could do the conversations on our own – that way Ammumma would be more comfortable speaking in detail (rather than with a stranger). And we would have the flexibility to ask any question we wanted.

So, I got to work. With some help from ChatGPT, I put together a set of questions that would cover every stage of life. For each section, I went into more detail and granular and got a set of 20 questions just for early childhood years. This was a great starting point! Now, all we needed to do was talk, I would record the phone call, transcribe it and then pick out the stories.

That’s when Nam came in with a brilliant idea. She saw how the book idea would not come to life anytime soon and the transcription was a long and painful task. Instead, what if we record the conversation itself in better quality and have that as our record? That way, we could capture the excitement and energy of Ammumma’s voice along with the stories – her stories in her voice through a podcast!

So, we decided on a podcast format. We would get on a Google Meet call and have our conversation. I would then take out the audio, break it into chapters and put them back together into episodes of 15-20 minutes each. My Acha (father) even bought a podcast mic at home to make the recording quality better! I was super excited as this gave me a chance to brush my audio and video editing skills. 

Now, I had with me the audio version of the first episode of the podcast. Where to upload this? The intended audience was our extended family and most of them weren’t tech savvy. But they were all on Youtube. So, that’s where we would go. That also meant we needed a video – blank or static videos are boring. That’s where my sister chipped in. She used AI tools to generate some beautiful images that could be shown for specific parts of the conversation. It really enhanced the overall experience of the podcast!

Fast forward to today, we have put out 8 episodes so far – one every week for the last 2 months. My approach on blog writing has helped me stay consistent here. We’ve covered stories from Ammumma’s early childhood and have moved on to her school life. 

<Edit on 11th Mar 2024: we’ve reached 20 episodes of the podcast and going strong>

It took us about 1 week to do everything and take the first episode of the podcast live. But it took me close to 3 years to just get started after having the idea for the first time. Could it have happened sooner? Yes. But I may not have had the same level of energy and determination that I have found now. The biggest addition is the perspective of passing on these stories to the next generation. It is now a family undertaking – Acha and Mummy set up the recording area, my sister and I do the video calls. I then get to editing the audio content while my sister gets the images ready. Nam helps with the editing. The rest of the family pitches in with feedback, ideas and stories. While the podcast is what the world sees, I think we are gathering wonderful conversations and memories along the way!

Next step – add English subtitles to the videos. I’ve begun the quest of finding an intern who can help me with this! Good leads would be appreciated!