Om Choudhury - Love of a Little Brother

 

So, I put my name in the hat and a part of me was really hoping that it would not come up. [audience laughter] It really was simply because consciously I tried to keep people away from looking inside me, but maybe subconsciously I wanted to talk to you, guys. And so, here I am. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

So, this is a story of two brothers. Me, myself, I'm 29 years old and my brother, Raj, who is about 23 years old. We grew up in north of India. Let me give you a little bit of an idea about my childhood days. Growing up in my country was no different from growing up in ancient Greece. Imagine yourself, you are in Sparta where if you are a guy, you're not supposed to cry, you're not supposed to shed tears, your tear ducts are not functional. If you are going through something physical or emotional or mental problems, all you have to do is put on a red cape and move on. [audience laughter] That was my childhood, pretty much growing up. 

 

Over the course of time, it presented with us a lot of problems. Also, gave us a really unique signature. I do have memories of my parents, but my younger brother unfortunately doesn't. All the cultural values that I grew up with immediately came into perspective one single day when I was 11 years old and my brother was five years old. Instead of my dad picking me up from college, it was actually my grandma who picked me up from my college-- Sorry, my school. It was really surprising, because she never comes and picked me up from the school and I knew something was wrong. 

 

I got home and I realized that my dad wasn't there anymore, which is fine because a lot of us have gone through this and everyone will go through this at some point sooner or later, so there are no sympathy points here. But I look across the room and I really don't know what to do. I look across the room and there's just my five-year-old brother who is just sitting in the corner, and he's crying and he's sad, and he's confused and one look into his eyes and it literally tore my heart. Like, what am I supposed to tell this kid? He's barely five. No matter what I say, there is nothing I can do or say to make him feel better. 

 

Now, I'm not a psychologist, I don't know why I did what I did next, but all I did was I ran from the funeral home. And I did. I went to the closest stationery shop, got red velvet paper which we used in arts and crafts, made two clown hats out of it and took two pieces of red paper, scrambled them up and make two clown noses out of it. I immediately came running back and I put one hat on myself, one on my brother and I said, “Hey, do you want to go have an ice cream with me?” It was really surprising. 

 

The reason I did that was because my brother was in love with these street side vendors who would dress up as clowns and bring ice cream and balloons. He loved it. Now, some people say-- Well, one person once said that subtlety is a sign of cultural weakness. A man who is uncivilized knows exactly what he wants and he knows exactly what is right and exactly what is wrong. And in my case, it was pretty evident to me that what was right was making this five-year-old kid laugh, and what was really wrong was these social norms that I'm supposed to comply with. I do need a red cape at that particular moment, but instead I need is a red hat and red clown nose. 

 

And that particular day, I ended up pissing every single person in that funeral home. I took my brother out and we were gone. We were evolved for almost a couple of hours. I came very next day and finished all the rituals that I had to do. Now, I won't wish my trajectory on anyone. Next 18 years, we weren't exactly a walking path for either of me or my brother. There was no food for us, there was no money, there was no house, but somehow, we got through it. Both of us are doing really well right now. Both of us are like-- He's in Tepper and [unintelligible 00:45:55] School Of Business and I got my PhD from CMU and things worked out really well. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

But over this course of next 18 years, I realized that me and my brother had promised this really super cool clownish bond where if one of us was struggling, the other person would always bring exactly two clown hats. It was our way of saying to each other like, “Hey, the world hasn't ended yet and it's not going to end, because I'm always going to have your back.” 

 

Fast forward story 18 years, about seven weeks ago. I'm not sure I should be talking about this, but my world came crashing down. I really thought that I'd seen everything that the life has to throw at me, but it did not. Three of the people I loved most in my entire life, I lost them in a single week. Hey, once again, no sympathy points here, because we all go through it. And if not, one of each stage, we will. But I was really depressed. It took me 48 hours to get out of bed. I did not eat, I did not sleep, I did not drink, I did absolutely nothing. 

 

] At the end of the day, I ended up calling my brother, one of those normal conversation. I was speaking to him, and he was like-- Now, he's sitting halfway across the globe at this point, and he was like, “Hey, how are you doing?” I didn't want him to worry at all. So, I was like, “Oh, I'm doing perfectly fine. How are you doing?” We had this normal conversation, and we hung up. 

 

Exactly 23 hours and 47 minutes later, I get a call on my cell phone saying, “Dude, Pittsburgh is fucking cold. How do you live in this godforsaken place?” [audience laughter] And I'm like, “Wait, wait. Where are you? Where are you?” And he's like, “Stop talking and just come pick me up from the airport.” [audience laughter] I rush across all the traffic, I go to airport and I see this guy who's clad in jeans, a blue jeans, a shirt that says “World's clowniest brother ever,” which he himself made it up. The only thing he brought with him that day, halfway across the globe, was his visa, his passport and two hats, two clown hats, and he tells me, “I know it's really snowy out there, but how about we go and us two clowns have that piece of ice cream that we always wanted?” So, that's my story.