No goodbyes, pls!

 Lately I have been remembering my mother a lot. One of the reasons behind the rumination is the way she brought us up. How she managed her career and home with equal aplomb, juggling between the myriad tasks with so meagre resources at hand. We never had a cook at home. So she cooked all three meals for five of us at home each single day, with great love and care. She never cut corners by serving lazy breakfasts like cornflakes, oats, bread jam etc. So it used to be Paratha and fried egg for breakfast during our school days and nutritious veg curry with rice etc for lunch. Dinner used to be simple fare like roti and some veg item cooked and served to us kids before 8 PM. How she managed to do all this along with her career, I can never begin to fathom. Add to this the extra chore of washing our clothes. We welcomed washing machine very late in our lives may be in class 6th. She also took extra care in our grooming. We were always dressed in our very best, she being an amazing seamstress, stitched all out clothes in her sewing machine at home. Till class 12th, we wore frocks created by her only. Did I mention, she used to knit our sweaters as well?! Yes, she was a jack of all trades and master of most.

An ordinary lady would have cribbed & crashed after coming home from work. But did she ever complain?! Never. Always sociable and welcoming to all relatives and neighbours alike, she loved to play host and served lip smacking dishes. Her biryani was to die for and eclectic dishes like pudding etc still make my mouth water. In those days, we never had cable tv at home so our sources for entertainment were limited. But we never felt the need of that. Because, she used to come home from work and take us out for shopping and snacks. I still remember our fav joint Super Snax in Mayfair Rourkela, where she used to take us for Dosas and Ice-cream followed by shopping. And all this, after a full day of work and cooking, cleaning etc. She didn't drive so her work involved a minimum of 2 hours of commute each single day, changing multiple autos to reach college. [She was a professor] And then a bit of walking to reach the auto stand as well. And every day, she used to get something or the other to eat for us while returning home. My fav was Alu Chop. Hence mostly it used to be that or chowmein at times...

Sometimes when I return home from work and I feel so dead inside, hardly have the energy to make a cup of tea. Can never begin to imagine how she managed three kids clinging to her and demanding her attention all the time and she managing to exceed our expectations always...I see lot of mothers around me and I observe different parenting styles these days. But nothing or nobody comes even close to what she was or she did for us. Super-woman she was. In every sense of the word. I still remember her words so very vividly, "Don't ever mourn my death, don't ever ever shed a tear in my memory...It will hurt me the most. Always keep smiling...And then I will come in your dreams to communicate with you all."

A mother's love is like an ocean. It never ends or changes...even with a shift in realms. So I will not grieve, because I know... anything that we lose will come round in another form...sooner or later.

The Picasso in me…

 

What is your calling?

“There is more to life than work and family.”

Prophetic words, right? Casually uttered by a friend of mine recently. He is not just a hard working professional but also a very loving and committed family person. Father to two adorable kids and always kind and helpful to everyone around. 

So, is there something wrong if we feel we need something more in life to make us withstand the mundanity. More than family and work? Are we being unrealistic or just plain selfish? What he actually meant was the need to address a higher “calling”. Something which will make you jump out of bed each morning. Things that motivate you and make you feel on top of the world. Adrenaline rush. Excitement. Feeling of vindication after you accomplish it. 

For my friend, it’s running. He is a marathon runner and runs long distance with great ease. Creating records one after another. We often discuss fitness and nutrition and I always feel inspired after every chat with him. And these words of his about having something more in life really stuck with me. And I started thinking... what is my calling? Reading? Painting? Exercise? Cooking?

Actually apart from reading, I am bit inconsistent on the other stuff, kinda on and off. Yo-yo. But Reading is something I truly enjoy. It’s my caffeine/cocaine. I wake up and read TOI online, Scroll, Medium, newspaper hard copy in addition to the book I would have in hand. All this reading I finish before even thinking about breakfast. Even when I am working, I always have a book open next to my laptop. I sleep with a book next to my pillow. Books are like my most favourite possessions. Last year I read 22 books. This year, I intend to break the record. 

Ok. To cut the long story short, reading is my calling. 

Elif Shafak

 

ELIF SHAFAK. My latest muse. An amazing writer who specialises in stories which are derivatives of the beautiful Turkish world. 

Currently I am enjoying my 4th read by her, “HONOR”. The previous ones which I thoroughly enjoyed are “40 RULES OF LOVE”, “BASTARDS OF ISTANBUL” and “THE APPRENTICE”.

After a long time, I have come across a writer who breathes life into each word she pens down. With so much love, thought and care. Not to mention, how she opens a whole new world for readers who have never been to Turkey and experienced the culture of this picturesque land. Her writings have elements of Sufism as well and that will inspire you to introspect into your own life at times. You will find meaning and logic in random happenings and find yourself taking solace from many of Rumi’s sayings. My favourite ones are actually too many to be mentioned here.

Highly recommend the books by ELIF SHAFAK.

"Living to tell the tale" By Gabriel Garcia Marquez (A Book Review)

Have you ever been told that the correct way to sample a wine is first take a tiny sip, swirl it in your mouth, let the flavor sweep your palate and senses and then spit it out. The experience of reading this book, is something akin to that. You have to read a sentence, let it brew in your head for a while and then re-read to crystallize the understanding or nuances hidden in the intricate web of words. So it takes lot of effort and focus to read even 1 page, because its like reading 3 pages in 1. And the effort of reading it really tires your brain, because we are so used to speed-reading and skimming page-turners. In this book, even if you miss one para, the rest of it does not make any sense, though it’s a different thing that 40% of the stuff written in this book is philosophical and will bounce over your head.

Gabriel Marquez is perhaps one of the most acclaimed, revered and widely read writer of our time, and this particular book is autobiographical in nature, where in he describes his journey starting from childhood till he gained recognition as a writer. The struggles he and his family had to go through in Columbia and his personal dilemma of choosing a profession considering all the parameters of family approval, financial viability till the moment when he proposes to the woman he loves in a very filmy fashion and who eventually becomes his wife etc. But most importantly, the book elaborates on the difficult journey and metamorphosis of an immensely talented writer. It is a tale of people, places and events as they occur to him: family, work, politics, books and music, his beloved Colombia, and his eternal love for poetry.

Marquez was one of the earliest proponents and adopters of Magical realism genre. Magical realism is a style of fiction and literary genre that paints a realistic view of the modern world while also adding magical elements. This book was originally published in Spanish and it became a huge bestseller across the globe, then it was elegantly translated into English by Edith Grossman.

Marquez begins his narrative with a journey. He is in his early 20s, living in Barranquilla and scratching out a living as a journalist, when his mother appears one day out of the blue at a bookstore where he often hangs out. As the eldest son, he must accompany her to the town of Aracataca to close the deal on the sale of the family home. The uncomfortable journey via boat and train is filled with mishaps, and he spends a good part of it convincing his mother about his decision to drop out of university to become, of all things, a writer. The house remains unsold, but for Garcia Marquez it proves the catalyst for this larger journey into the past and that’s how the story unfolds…

The book is not linear. One memory casually slips into another, leading him to an interesting digression about some other event or character. He often mentions his family home as a lunatic house with 11 kids and parents and relatives. And he does give them the credit of providing him with ample content as a writer.

His father was a homeopathic pharmacist who disappeared for long periods of time often indulging in illicit affairs, leaving his mother with 11 children to raise. But Garcia’s memories are anything but bleak, for everyone in his world at that point of time was relatively poor and struggling. The last 200 pages in the book talk about his journalistic career in Bogota and how he weathers his country’s political upheavals with the same sense of equilibrium as he managed his family encumbrances. It is around the time of the popular uprising of April 9, 1947, that he reconnects with the girl he has known since childhood who will become his wife. This chapter of the story ends with Garcia Marquez on a plane headed for a conference in Geneva, and he writes a letter proposing to the woman he loves mentioning that if doesn’t hear from her within a couple of days, he will spend the rest of his life in Geneva. Fortunately, he receives the response immediately and that’s how the story ends in a symbolic way as he embarks on the part of his life that will eventually make him a citizen of the world.