Lessons from Dad: Masooma Ranalvi

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Welcome to the Moth Podcast.

I'm Emily Couch, producer of Special Projects and Radio at the Moth, and your host for this episode.

When I was in high school, and even younger, in elementary school, even, I was a complete perfectionist.

All A's, all AP classes, gave myself a panic attack during a chemistry quiz, you name it.

it.

My dad would often tell me, lovingly, it was okay to get a B.

That said, I think I inherited a lot of my perfectionism from him.

It was more of a do-as-I-say, not-as-I-Do sort of lesson.

Regardless, I didn't listen to him at the time.

But finally, as an adult, and after many reminders from him, as well as my own growth and therapy, I do find that I've been able to internalize his words and let things slide here and there.

It's now a lesson I remind my dad of.

When he was spinning his wheels trying to finish his house and putting an amount of detail and work into it that no one except for him would ever appreciate, I was his voice of reason, reminding him that good can be enough and that he and his house didn't have to be perfect.

In this episode, we're going to share a story about the lessons you can learn from a father, the things that stay with you no matter where you are in life.

Masuma Rinalvi told this at a Kate Spade showcase in New York City, where the theme of the night was uncharted territory.

Here's Masuma, live at the moth.

26th August 2010.

There were torrential rains lashing across Mumbai.

I had just landed into the city from Delhi and was sitting in a cab going to my parents' house.

My father had just passed away.

I was numb.

The constant pounding of the rain on the cab matched the pounding in my heart.

My mind was racing back.

My father was my hero.

He was my biggest protector and champion.

I grew up in the small, tight-knit Shia Muslim community in Mumbai

with rigid customs and traditions.

But I never felt any of this because I grew up with a lot of warmth and love and freedoms which were unthinkable for Muslim girls my age.

So music and dance was strictly taboo in Muslim households.

But as a kid, I was sent for music and dance classes.

We even had a turntable in our house with benile records of Boni M, Beatles and ABBA playings through my childhood.

In the 70s, when jeans became a thing, I so wanted a pair of jeans.

But again, Muslim girls were not allowed to wear jeans then.

But my father indulged me.

And I was so proud to be the only one in my neighborhood to have a pair of jeans.

One day when I came back from school, My mother and my sisters had long morose faces.

They were very angry and upset.

I learned that we had just been uninvited from a wedding party of a very close family relative.

My father had been declared a social outcast.

He had been socially boycotted.

I didn't really understand what these words meant, so my mom explained it to me.

My father had joined a group of radicals and he had criticized our religious leader.

Our religious leader collected millions of dollars as religious taxes,

which were then used in his personal coffers and not for the community benefit.

So my dad and a few of his friends questioned this forced extortion of money and asked for public accountability.

He was punished by being silenced and by being socially outcast.

From that day onwards, our lives changed.

We were not allowed to meet our friends and relatives.

We could not go to their houses, nor could they come over to our houses.

We were not invited for any wedding parties or receptions or any big social occasions.

As a child, I have no memory of birthday parties because I was never invited for a birthday party.

Even for big religious functions like Eid,

we could not go to the mosque because we feared violence.

And so we celebrated all of this in isolation.

I was about seven years old then,

so the impact of social boycott really did not hit me.

But I could see how my mother bore the brunt of this.

There was this huge clamor from relatives to my dad that he should apologize to the religious head and get back into the community fold.

They even told him that what will happen if you die, your burial rites would not be performed.

But my dad was unbent.

It was at that time I realized that he is different.

He is not like the regular dads.

Growing up,

He continued to champion my freedoms.

So I went to college.

While most of the Muslim girls in my school ended up getting married, I went on to do my graduation.

I went to a co-ed college.

I could wear whatever I wanted.

There was no pressure on me to wear a hijab or a scarf.

I could meet and talk to boys.

I even fell in love with a boy from another community.

and another religion and I was allowed to marry him.

My father encouraged me to read and widen my horizons.

He inspired me to take action.

As a student, I volunteered to work with underprivileged girls and women.

I even enrolled to do law to become a human rights lawyer.

And whenever I spoke out and I took action, my biggest cheerleader and applauder was my father.

As the cab was reaching home, the grim reality that my father is no more was beginning to hit me even harder.

I entered my house.

It was full of people, family, friends, comrades from my father's reformist movement.

These were all the people who had stood by us during our years of isolation.

My dad's very own brothers were not there.

They had stopped talking to my father when he was socially boycotted.

They did not come even in his death.

I entered my parents' bedroom.

He lay on the bed there.

It was full of people.

I suddenly wanted everybody to just disappear.

I didn't want the peering eyes of people on me.

I went and sat next to my dad on the bed.

I held his icy cold hands.

I touched his feet.

I kissed him on his forehead and I hugged him.

I refused to let go of him till I was gently pulled away by my sisters.

Then came the question of burial.

He was socially outcast and we all knew that we risked

his coffin being stoned by the fanatic elements of my community.

We risked

these very same fanatics hurling abuses on the funeral procession.

We risked the gates of the funeral grounds locked and we're not allowed entry into the funeral grounds.

All I wanted was

the last journey for my father to be a peaceful one, befitting of the life he lived on his own terms.

But that was not going to happen.

The men in the house, the elders, took a decision to bury my dad in another community's burial ground.

a Sunni mosque and a burial ground, so that we would not have to face the fanatics from my community.

They however forgot one little detail.

Women were not allowed inside a Sunni mosque and burial ground.

Four of the most important people in my father's life,

his wife and his three daughters, were not allowed to be part of his burial.

I was seething seething with anger.

I wanted to put a stop to all of this,

but I could not.

I stood outside the mosque gates as they took my father inside.

There was a six-feet periphery wall outside the mosque.

I inched up on my toes to get the last glimpse of my father.

Rain and the tears flowed incessantly.

I was haunted.

The anger and the frustration and the helplessness of that moment continued to haunt me.

It drove me even more to take up causes for social change.

I plunged myself into work.

It is 12 years since my father has passed away.

I have not been to his grave because I am still not allowed to go there.

But today

I lead India's largest survivor-led movement against female genital mutilation.

My biggest fight is against the religious leader who propagates and enforces this practice.

This is this very same religious establishment against whom my father had stood.

I do this work with pride

and as I do it I feel my dad in me.

Thank you.

That was Masuma Rinalvi.

Masuma is a feminist, activist, storyteller, chievinging scholar, and an Aspen New Voices fellow.

She currently works as a trainer and campaigner on issues of gender equity.

She is the founder of We Speak Out, a survivor-led platform working for the elimination of female genital mutilation in India and the world.

That's it for this episode.

From all of us here at the Moth, we hope you have a story-worthy week.

Emily Couch is a producer on the Moth's artistic team, offering logistical support on creative projects and the Moth Radio Hour.

She loves to work behind the scenes to spread the beauty of true personal stories to listeners around the world.

This episode of the Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Janess, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Solinger.

The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant Walker, Leigh Ann Gulley, and Aldi Casa.

All Moth stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers.

For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

TheMoth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at PRX.org.

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