One Chili Pepper and the Power of Words
I spent my childhood in the countryside, in a place where folks worshipped red hot chili peppers — real edible ones, not the American band. And by worship I mean locals add crushed wild chilies in each and every meal. There’s even a dish made up of nothing but chopped chili peppers cooked in coconut cream. Legend has it that the early settlers in my province would protect and save their revered chili plants in the backyard rather than their homes during the typhoon season.
But I digress.
I mentioned chilies only because a piece of it had a profound effect in my young mind’s belief in the power of words, the power of stories.
It was a sunny afternoon. My first grade teacher sidled up to my desk where a number of my pals were starting to converge.
“Open your mouth,” she said.
“Aaah,” was my curt reply.
Then, without warning, she popped a raw chili into my mouth and asked me to hold it to my lips until the class was finished. It was freshly picked from the school garden. I swear it had the aroma of dirt and chalk.
Before I knew what was happening, I saw my classmates giggling at me. Apparently, my teacher’s intention was to keep my mouth closed and quiet. I was disturbing the whole class with my own retelling of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo III (or was it Rocky III?). I was diverting the class’s attention away from whatever it was that the teacher was scribbling on the board.
A little embarrassed but not to be outdone by my teacher in front of my first crush whose name I’ve long since forgotten, I did the unthinkable.
I bit the chili and ate it! I guess you can call it my way of turning things around, of turning my embarrassment into an opportunity to impress my classmates and the erstwhile apple of my eye.
Well, I failed. Miserably. Even now, I can still feel the hot tears flowing down my cheeks as I tried to endure the burning sensation on my lips and tongue. The giggles around me turned into a chorus of laughter. My ego was not just bruised. It was totally annihilated.
It was an era when teachers were gods in the classroom, when parents were either too coy to complain to the authorities or too eager to pass on some of the disciplinary responsibilities to educators who, after all, earned their livelihood from the tuition that parents paid to the school. Suffice to say, nobody complained about the incident. As a matter of fact, the story is now a staple in our family reunions where it never fails to make everyone laugh, including me.
I’m telling you this story now because somehow it sparked my belief in the power of stories. For good or for bad, words have power. All the major religions of the world draw their power in the written word. The last world war started with the words uttered by one fellow and his cohorts who convinced their countrymen that their race stood above the rest. Interestingly, in that darkest of times, words too allowed hope to flicker when brave men told each other to never, never give up.
Some people have faith in mathematical formulas. Others pin their hopes on music or photographs or artwork. But without the words or stories to describe them, things would be difficult to understand. Without words, people will find it hard to do things. For me, words and stories are the ultimate source of power — and my paycheck.
It was unfortunate that my first stint as a storyteller ended miserably. But my embarrassment from the chili incident is gone. It’s now replaced by a sense of satisfaction — even pride — that in the middle of my first grade class, I held my audience in awe (save for one killjoy teacher) even for just a few moments.
Thousands of ghostwritten articles, blog posts, copywriting gigs, and short stories later, I look back to that one particular moment as a kid and I tell myself, “You’ve done well, my boy!”
