by
Muneesh Jain
Podcaster Muneesh Jain, a native of Kalamazoo and a lifelong Detroit Tigers fan, tells a touching story in Traverse City for The Moth Podcast about letting down his parents, being successful—but not in their eyes—and how baseball saved him from the depths of sadness while mending his relationship with his mother.
Jain, who is based in New York and co-hosts a podcast called The Clubhouse, shares his inspirational story, which begins like this:
My parents are from India. So, in our house, that meant we had a high bar set for academic achievement, and a specific type of professional success: doctor, lawyer, engineer. By the time my sister was 12, she knew she was going to be a doctor, just like my dad.
When I was nine, I called a family meeting to let everyone know I was never going to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or an engineer. I was going to be a gymnast. My parents, they tolerated it, but told me that one day I was going to have to grow out of it. But I went to the gym six days a week, five hours a night. And by the time I was a teenager, I was training for the Olympics. Then multiple injuries ended my career. My folks, they said, “Alright, you got that out of your system. Now it’s time to focus on your education.”
I needed them to be impressed with me, the way they were my sister. I just, I couldn’t wrap my head around doing it their way. So I came up with a bigger idea. When I was 19, I got a job with ESPN. I was producing live segments for Sportscenter, ESPN news, hanging out with my sports idols. My folks, they kept reminding me, “Don’t let this get in the way of your schoolwork.”
He then started a successful sports magazine in Detroit. But that had its downside. At age 24, the doctor told him he was six months away from a heart attack.
I either had to get rid of the magazine or die. So I gave up. And something broke inside of me. And I couldn’t face my parents. I took the money I’d saved from ESPN and the magazine, and I ran away. I moved to New York into a tiny 160-square-foot studio apartment where the windows didn’t even open, and it was there that my self-imposed exile began. Slowly losing contact with every human I’d ever met.
The delivery guy would just leave the food outside my apartment because I couldn’t even make eye contact with him. I was a failure.
Then baseball saved him. Listen to his story below.
