The final chapter of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World has all of Tequila Leila’s friends celebrating her, raising a glass to her and their friendship, and more importantly, celebrating a life lived with all its banalities, surprises, sorrows and joy. When I heard the creator of Tequila Leila was coming to the LSE Festival, I knew I had to be there!
I first learned about the LSE Festival when my friend was pursuing a master’s at LSE. Most of the sessions were online last year. This year, sessions were in-person and online — the best of both worlds.
Shafak’s fans gathered in the Marshall Building to hear her talk about How to Move On, an apt name for an apt time. She talked about trauma and the power of stories along the lines of her new book The Island of Missing Trees. While the book discussion was informative and insightful, her prose and intelligence were remarkable during the Q&As. To see the humane and compassionate side of a writer was a breath of fresh air amidst the rapidly changing social media platforms that we are so habituated to consuming.
Most of Elif’s works that I have read were melancholic where you crave a nostalgic past, a had been, a return to one’s roots, and a form of awareness. Seeing her talk in person once again reminded me of the importance of such nostalgia, of holding onto the roots, of embracing a future full of uncertainties with staunch determination gathered from the past.
One of the many questions asked to her was about the ways to deal with the collective numbness that is so prevalent in the world. She beautifully addressed the potential harm of silence and how we simply cannot afford silence or apolitical views. She explained that we lose half the battle the minute we take our eyes off certain things happening in different parts of the world thinking that it doesn’t concern us. Silence also speaks volumes. Silence can also be misinterpreted, the consequence of which we are not prepared to bear.
The biggest takeaway for me personally was the sheer importance of stories and how stories need to be told and shared. It is our stories that unite us, she emphasised. Those stories can take myriad forms; some are familiar to us, others alien. Nevertheless, we need to look out for those stories, we need to tell those stories and we need to value those stories. It is within those stories that we will find a way to each other. If one is in a position of telling those stories in any shape or form, one should embrace them with the utmost dignity.
Anushka Srivastava, a student of LSE’s Master of Public Administration, was one of the many attendees in the session. Recalling the session, Anushka shares that her favourite part was when the author emphasised the importance of discussing the stories of minorities and women, for their pain is deeply rooted and seldom find a voice. She was deeply intrigued by Elif’s depiction of generational trauma and how the tiny invisible branches of pain trickle down quietly and spread onto younger generations. “These are legacies that are passed on across generations of immigrant families and become important to their identities, isn’t it something to think about?”, asks Anushka.
There was a book signing event shortly after the session. I got the opportunity to get my book signed by her and thank her personally for all that her books have done for me over the years. I thanked her for Tequila Leila and the myriad of other characters she created. “Friendship is something, isn’t it?”, she asked me as she signed my book. I took my book and said a silent prayer to the Almighty for friendship is quite something, at least in my life.
