ROW-cub

A granddaughter and a grandmother try to communicate across generations, languages and phone lines.

Aaji (Grandma) is in her 90s, proficient in English but more comfortable in Marathi, and hard-of-hearing. Mithu is in her 30s, okay at Marathi (but speaks in a stilted, error-filled, and somewhat childlike way common to many second-generation immigrants), and heartbroken. After Aaji innocently asks if her granddaughter, Mithu, is bringing her "friend" home for the holidays, Mithu struggles - because of the language barrier, her grandmother's difficulty hearing, and the challenge of being on the phone - to translate her heartache. The piece explores how bearing witness to each other in a family context can be hard and fraught, even when it might be worth it.

Click here to listen to this story with subtitles by Radio Atlas.

ROW-cub was produced by Neena Pathak, with actors & translation consultants Nalinee Mehendale (Aaji) and Uma Pathak (Sangeeta-maushi), and engineering by Jake Gorski.

Special thanks to: Stella Tan, Donkey Dover, Nichole Perkins, Bim Adewunmi, Krutika Mallikarjuna, Eleanor Kagan, Mitra Kaboli, Justin Zullo, Megan Detrie, Schuyler Swenson, Michael Simon Johnson, and Priya Mehendale