The long goodbye a memoir by Meghan O'Rourke

“The bereaved cannot communicate with the unbereaved!"Iris Murdoch

I’ve been on a trip - a trip to see how people mourned their loss! Did they feel the same as I did? Did they react the same way as I did? Am I normal? Is this the normal behavior? And because of this trip I have read (consecutively) five books on the dying, death and the loss. I guess now is the time to wind up my journey and rest in the assurance that each one mourns the loss his own way. There is no rule book and there are no rights and wrongs. What made the realization dawn on me? The book ‘The Long Goodbye a memoir’ by Meghan O’Rourke !

I started this book in search of answers. I thought I would connect because this is a book by a woman who is probably as old as me and who lost her mother when she was least prepared (are we ever really prepared to see our parent die?). However, halfway through the book I shut it in frustration, because she was going back and forth and back and forth. She spoke of her mom’s death and then went back to when she was better and then came back to the time when she was seriously ill. I shut the book and left it in the corner and then after a few days picked it up again. Maybe I hoped for a change in track or maybe more tears; I really don’t know! I stared reading and once again shut it in exasperation!

Why did Meghan not spell it out? Why did she toggle between stories and emotions? Why did it have to be only about her? Then I realized, it was about her. This is her book about her emotions and her loss! How could I have been so naive to think it would be different?  If I were to write a book on my loss; I too would probably sound just like this (albeit with some more drama..since I am known to be a drama queen)!

So do I recommend the book? Yes I do, for those who are still striving to express pain in their loss. I’d recommend it to those who want to read about loss and about feelings and expressions.

One paragraph that cliched it for me was towards the end of the book; “With my mother’s death the person who brought me into the world left it, a portal closing behind her, a line of knowledge binding her body to mine in the old ways. Who else contained me, felt me kick, nursed me, held the towel out to me when I got out of the bath... Who else do I share this history with? No one. Because she is not here, I must mother myself.”

Meghan O'Rourke

#thelonggoodbye #meghanorourke #mourning #loss #death #cancer #memoir #mother         

When Breath Becomes air by Paul Kalanithi

"Even if I am dying, 

Unit I actually die,

I'm still living"

Paul Kalanithi 

Everyone of us has a plan for life. We pick our (or maybe our parent’s) choice of subject, study hard, find a good job, get married, have children, get a promotion (only if we are really good) and basically live our lives like everyone does. What if suddenly fate deals us a bad hand and we realize that we only have a couple of months to live? Will we give up and feel sorry for ourselves? Well I’m guessing most of us will! Or will we fight it and try to change our situation? Or will we accept it, make the best of it and live whatever is left of our life to its fullest?

Questions like these are hard to answer, but think about it. I did, when I read “When Breath Becomes air” by Paul Kalanithi. To give you a gist of the book; “at the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live.”    

“When breath becomes air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naive medical student ‘possessed,’ as he wrote, ‘by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life’ into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, and finally into a patient and a new father confronting his own mortality.”

This book is about Kalanithi and about all of us as well. The book touched a raw nerve in a sense. I was rattled, shaken, miserable, crying at times; but also so aware of my own life and surroundings. I have a family that loves me, a husband who supports and encourages me, two children who adore me and friends who add joy to life. All this is mine now; but how long will I have it. Am I truly living my life to the fullest? I kept questioning my contribution to the world, I kept asking myself if I had truly maxed my potential and I kept wondering if I would be but a mere drop in the ocean or the wave that runs up the shore?  

This is one book that I took a long time to finish, because I kept going back and forth; reading and rereading and mulling about my own existence!

I loved the emphasis on reading that Kalanithi makes right at the start where he talks about his mother. ‘Trained in India to be a psychologist, married at twenty-three, and preoccupied with raising three kids in a country that was not her own, she had not read many of the books on the list (college prep reading list). But she would make sure her kids were not deprived.”

Walking into high or multi-specialty hospitals we often wonder why Doctors are such hard nuts to crack! Why they don’t smile often or why they are not friendly enough! Kalanithi sums it up by saying ‘Cadaver dissection epitomizes, for many, the transformation of the somber; respectful student into the callous, arrogant doctor.’

Like I said, this is one book that had me returning to previous pages to reread a paragraph and as I write this review..I actually sat back a reread a few more chapters. That's what unique about this book.

Paul is no more, he died in March 2015. However as mentioned by Abraham Verghese in his foreword, “I got to know Paul only after his death. .. I came to know him most intimately when he’d ceased to be.” Similarly I too feel like I know Paul! Somewhere, somehow he connected with me, spoke to me and left me in tears for a friend I lost!

I’d recommend this book a 100%. Read it for Paul, read it to understand that immortality is only hear-say, read it to connect with your true self, and read it because it is worth reading.

I close with a few quotes from the book.

"... amid that unique suffering involved by severe brain damage, the suffering often felt more by families than by patients, it is not merely the physicians who do not see the full significance. The families who gather around their beloved - their beloved whose sheared head contained battered brains - do not usually recognize the full significance either. They see the past, the accumulation of memories, the freshly felt love, all represented by the body in before them."

"Let no man put asunder what God has joined."

#bookreview #whenbreathbecomesair #paulkalanithi #doctors #neurosurgeon #cancer #mortality #immortality #abrahamverghese  

The Witch’s Dog and the Flying Carpet by Frank Rodgers

Once in a while, I let my guard down and rummage through my kids book collection. Last night, was one such night. Came away with a cute (recently bought) book called The Witch’s Dog and the Flying Carpet by Frank Rodgers.

What a cute and simply method of storytelling. It has magic, it has adventure, it has good and bad characters, it has family and relations, it has the usual triumph of good over evil, it has colorful illustrations and most importantly IT HAS A DOG - WILF.

Wilf, the Witch’s Dog, finds an old magic carpet. But even magic carpets wear out and this one is full of holes! Wilf tries to mend it with his magic, but his spell goes wrong and surprises everyone.

Wilf and his Mistress Weenie

Recommend this book for all young book lovers.

As my kids (aged 5 and 2) fell asleep; I too switched off the light with a smile on my lips. Sighhhh....  

Frank Rodgers

#thewitch'sdogandtheflyingcarpet #children'sbook #storybook #storytelling #frankrodgers #wilf #dog

Sangria a recipe for love by Manuela Requena

“Passion and Love are the fundamental ingredients in the recipe of life.” Manuela Requena.

Image a scenario wherein you have lost your sense of smell and of taste. Would it not be terrible! Imagine not being able to smell the morning cup of coffee or taste the deliciousness of your most favored dish? Unfortunately this is exactly what the lead protagonist of Sangria – Rose; suffers from. No amount of visits to the Otolaryngology clinics have provided her answers and so she lives her life without knowing the simple pleasures that we so often take for granted.

The book is simple and straightforward. It is a story about a young woman with no sense of smell or taste and how one fine day a chance encounter slowly changes her life. This book is a lovely combination of a story of loss, of love and family ties and also a mini recipe book. This is probably the first ever book on cookery clubbed with fiction. An interesting combination, I must add!

When Rose gets an opportunity to cook for her friends and family she sets off to the market to buy her groceries. There she meets Isabel, a mysterious gypsy at a Australian vegetable market who introduces Rose to the fabulous world of herbs and spices (I call it fabulous because I love cooking and love fresh herbs and aromatic spices). Her take on herbs and other ingredients leaves magical spell on Rose as well as the reader. She shares some simple recipes with Rose and advises her to cook the dishes with love.

One paragraph that stuck with me after reading the book is where Isabel gives Rose a simple but profound advice. “Rose, these recipes will help you with your evening but it is you that will make the evening a success. These recipes are only words on paper. What makes them come alive is the love that you put into them, without that, they are tasteless. It is the essence of Rose that makes it a success, your essence.”

How true is that! A simple dal chawal cooked by any mother is the most delicious meal ever for any child; because a mother flavours her food with her essence, her love and her blessings.

Sangria a recipe for love is another simple yet beautiful book from the Undercover Utopia Publishing house.

#bookreview #cookbook #fiction #sangria #ManuelaRequena #recipe 

False Impression by Jeffrey Archer

“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process” said the famous painter Van Gogh. Sometimes I wonder, don’t we all (those of us who love our work) go through this emotion. While reading “False Impression” by Jeffrey Archer, I wondered if he too had lost his mind in the process of churning out best sellers. 

The book starts off on a confusing note, then grips us with the events during and immediately after the 9/11 tragedy that struck the World Trade Centre, America and effectively the whole world. Soon after it thankfully picks up pace and sure enough by the time we reach the last pages of the book we know why Jeffrey Archer books are best sellers!

The reason I started off with a quote by Van Gogh is because he plays a central role in the entire plot. It is he who entices the villain, he who lures the greedy, he who forces the heroine and her friend to take on the grab of saviour, he is responsible for some gruesome murders and for the cross Atlantic travel that our characters undertake.  Don’t be confused, Van Gogh didn’t actually physically appear in a plot set in the 2001; he appeared in the form of his priced Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Van Gogh

Like all Jeffrey Archer novels, this one too is a thriller and although it starts off slow, it catches up and you have a roller coaster of a ride. The plot thickens as the main protagonist picks herself up from the dust created by the 9/11 blasts, travels to London, then Bucharest (Romania), then Tokyo and then back. What makes the plot thrilling are the two stalkers (each with their own agenda) that follow her all through! Without giving away too many details; I’d like to say that the book makes for a quick getaway from the daily rigors of life. It is interesting, thrilling and exciting to say the least. Most of the characters are likable but for one or two sinister ones.

Over all, I’d recommend this book to anyone wanting to kill time at the airport, railway station or bus station. It does not take too much of your intellect and can be forgotten once you reach your destination. Do note, the book is a best seller and has probably been reviewed a million times, but since I've read the book just now; I've posted my review only now!

Jeffrey Archer with the famous Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Van Gogh

#bookreview #thriller #jeffreyarcher #vincentvangogh #falseimpression #9/11 #self-portrait-with-Bandaged-Ear 

Celebrated writer Amy Tan once said “I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength...”Strongest wind cannot be seen.” Such is the strength of a mother’s teaching. As we celebrate the power of a woman, let’s take time to talk about ‘The woman’ who made “The WOMAN”.

I had the pleasure of interacting and working with a highly talented woman Sheetal Majithia (#sheetalmajithia). Based in Ahmedabad, Sheetal specializes in selling home décor, accessories, crockery that have a unique touch to them under the brand name Kalam (#KalambySheetalKMajithia). 

Each of her products carries her doodle designs on them. Mind you, the doodles are no ordinary scribbling, but great works of art and her products sell like hot cakes whenever she has an exhibition. During my interaction with her, she shared the news of her mother's book release and that got me intrigued. I asked more and thus was introduced to her mother – Rekha Bharat Rajpopat. At a young smashing 69, she has managed what most of us would probably not.

As a young girl, married off to a young Gujarati boy settled in Kabul; Rekhaben (‘ben’ being the respectful tag given to women from Gujarat) went through a huge cultural upheaval. A staunch follower of the Shreenathji, she was unable to perform her ‘seva’ for her lord to her satisfaction. In a land cut off from Pushti connections, she yearned for the known.  

That is when the need share her thoughts on the true form of seva within available means came about. She spent years researching and writing the text and thus brought out her first book Nikunj Nayak Shreenathji. The book has six volumes and is a detailed description on how to do seva.

Following this, Rekhaben started working on her second book Shree Yamunashtakam. However, finding an artist who could illustrate her vision right down to the ‘T’ was a task. In the meantime, the family moved out of Kabul due to the unrest in the nation and settled down in Singapore. Rekhaben continued writing and seeking out an artist all throughout.

Finally, in 2006, with the grace of Shree Thakurji and Shree Yamunaji, 108 Shree Dwarkeshlalji Maharaj from Baroda commissioned one of his haveli’s artist, Harishbhai to go to Singapore and help Rekhaben with the paintings of this book.

After 10 hard years of research and writing Rekhaben has finally shared her inspirations with her fellow Vaishnavs. The book has 84 pictures with intricate details; exactly as she had envisioned them. The book is aimed at helping her fellow Vaishnavs find their true selves as they make their journey towards Shree Yamunaji.

This book is available in three languages, Hindi, Gujarati and English with only a 1000 books to be printed in each language.

While there have been many books published about the Shree Yamunashtakam, there is none with such extraordinary pictures and detailed explanation of each of the 72 verses.

The whole idea behind this book, was to ensure that future generations can understand the true essence and meaning of the Shree Yamunashtakam, by reading the meaning of each verse whilst at the same time seeing a corresponding picture so that they can truly understand and appreciate its true meaning.

Rekhaben is truly an inspiration to all of us. Managing a home, four children and a husband in an alien city, away from the known whilst researching and compiling a book that is meant to connect the future generation to their roots is indeed a tough task! Rekhaben has now moved back to Ahmedabad from Singapore to complete her work on the third book – Shreemad Bhagatam, which is on its way to the publishers right now.

What makes this a truly inspiring Women’s day story? The fact that Rekhaben’s inspirations have been her mother Jaswantiben and Mother-in-law Mewaben! My salute and heartfelt greetings to such women of exemplary talent! 

#gujarati #sheetalmajithia #KalambySheetalKMajithia #ShreeYamunashtakam #NikunjNayakShreenathji #RekhaBharatRajpopat

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

“This book is a work of fiction. I made it up.” With that the author washes his hands off any and all emotional upheaval that the reader might possibly go through as she (me) goes through the twenty-five chapters of this beautifully woven young love story.

“The Fault in our stars” by John Green is a beautiful young love story. There is the usual uncertainty of the youth about acceptance, about feelings, about your own body, self image and sensuality; about life, the future, companionship, love, passion and the infinite certainty. What’s special you may ask! Well the fact that these are teenagers dying of cancer and finding love in the short life they have is what’s special!

The characters are all realistic and might even be children we grew up with or know from down the street. The jokes they make about life and the cruelty of their prognosis is so ‘in your face’ but quite believable.  

The fact that I read the book before I have seen the movie might possibly make it less appealing in a theater, but for once this is a book adapted movie that I want to see. I want to see everything that Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters saw when they went to Amsterdam. I want to live the absolutely romantic dinner they had, I want to sit on the park bench with them and smell the smells of beautiful and quaint Jordaan, I want to pick up the tiny confetti seeds and thrown them up in the sky and watch them waltz back down to earth...

A lovely story told simply and beautifully! (I can’t seem to get enough of the adjective ‘beautiful’ while describing this book). Having said that, it almost pained me to remember that the characters are all fictional and there exists no Hazel Grace and no Augustus Walters. Alas!!!

Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to all star crossed lovers, all teenagers, anyone looking for a simple quick read between heavy reading and well just about anyone who wants to kill time with a book in hand.

Simply said, beautifully written (there beautiful again) and ironically hilarious at times. Read this book if not for anyone else but beautiful Hazel Grace and dashing Augustus Waters.

#thefaultinourstars #romance #love #teenagers #cancer #johngreen #newyorkbestseller #death #loss

                                                                          

Inferno by Dan Brown

“Seek and you shall find” is the reoccurring phrase all through this book...... and ‘Seek’ I did!

Dan Brown’s Inferno was actually quite infuriating for me. I mean, I am a fan of Dan Brown and have read and enjoyed and reread his Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, Deception Point and Digital Fortress. I have lamented the lack of pulsating excitement in the movie The Da Vinci Code that is so much there in the book. However in the ‘Inferno’, there seems to be something amiss.

The plot is there, the symbols are there, the secrecy is there, the chase all over the world is there, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is very much there, the codes are there, everything is there and yet the book lacks something.

Having read his previous books, I get the feeling that in trying to give us all the details, explain all the meanings and implications and post-mortem every single context; Mr Brown has over done himself. The book drags and keeps dragging as it gets close to the climax. Unfortunately all that build-up and euphoria gets completely washed out towards the end of the book.

The plot seems genuine, the possibility of the human race growing to uncontrollable proportions seems very true, the need for saving the earth is absolutely spot on, the need to spread a virus and cause plague seems like a necessity albeit chilling; however all the injected sub plots seem too farfetched! The book has lots of characters and there are times you wonder why they are even there!

“Mankind, if unchecked, functions like a plague, a cancer...our numbers intensifying with each successive generation until the earthly comforts that once nourished our virtue and brotherhood have dwindled to nothing.... unveiling the monsters within us....fighting to the death to feed our young.”

Dante's death mask

This is a book for die hard Dan Brown fans who can forgive the man for his over enthusiasm and for those who are willing to skip pages and come to the thrilling parts without having to suffer all the details. However, if you are those who love to travel and explore the world I recommend the book. All you need to do is take down notes and visit all the places that are listed in the book. It could add drama to your trip and you can come back home and talk about walking in Prof Langdon’s shoes.

For the rest who have picked up the book because of Mr Brown... “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”

#Inferno #Danbrown #bookreview #robertlangdon #dante #deathmask

The Last Lecture, lessons in living by Randy Pausch

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."

“What will you do if you are told you only have a few days to live?” This is a question we ask while interviewing celebrities. Most often the answers range from wanting to have fun like they have never or spending time with family and friends. The answers are pretty straightforward and not out of the ordinary.... possibly because they know this is a rhetoric question and they are not really ‘going to die’. However, what if you truly know that you have only a few months to live! What will you do?

“The last Lecture” Lessons in living by Randy Pausch is one such book which tackles this question because Randy is someone who has only a few months to live! Randy Pausch was a professor of Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University. Diagnosed with ten tumors in his liver, he was given only a few months to live.

A father of three young children and married to the woman of his dreams, he could have easily felt sorry for himself. But “that wouldn’t do them, or me, any good”, thinks Randy. So while embracing every moment with his family and doing the logistical things necessary to ease their path into a life without him, Randy comes across a chance to deliver his ‘Last Lecture’. These lectures which were routinely conducted at Carnegie Mellon University were also videotaped. “The last lecture is a common exercise on college campuses. Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them...What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?”

‘The Last Lecture’ would give Randy the one chance to show his children, when they grew up and understood, what he really was.

This book is Randy’s Last Lecture, which he delivers to a packed auditorium of 400 plus students and faculty. While it would have been natural and understandable for Randy to talk about his cancer and his insights into the decease; he instead decides to base his lecture on achieving his childhood dreams. “...despite the cancer, I truly believed I was a lucky man because I had lived out these dreams. And I had lived out my dreams, in great measure, because of things I was taught by all sorts of extraordinary people along the way. If I was able to tell my story with the passion I felt, my lecture might help others find a path to fulfilling their own dreams.”

This is a book about a regular guy with oodles of passion for life, for living and for his subject. While I won’t give away Randy’s lecture, I will pick a few quotes that resonated with me very well. These make perfect sense in today’s world and are things we need to teach our children to enable them to lead better and more fulfilling lives.

“The instinct in our house was never to sit around like slobs and wonder. We knew a better way: Open the encyclopaedia. Open the dictionary. Open your mind.” That's so true. I always believe “when in doubt, ask!” Often when I myself am giving lectures about PCOS and Thyroid in colleges, I always encourage the audience to ask questions. Ask questions to me and to the doctors sitting there. No question is stupid or irrelevant. Opening the mind is vital to growth. We are lucky to have the encyclopaedia, the dictionary and Google to help us out. So ASK!

Randy talks about how grounded his parents were and how that helped keep him grounded. For instance after he got his PhD, his mother would introduce him as “This is my son. He’s a doctor, but not the kind who helps people.” How many of us would say that? We live in an era where boosting yours and your child’s ego plays precedence over his/her real contribution or worth. Don’t get me wrong. My children are precious to me; but I think knowing and understanding their potential is more important than gloating over fluke wins!

Randy talks about his football coach – Coach Graham and how he used to ride his students hard. “Coach Graham worked in a no-coddling zone. He knew there was really only one way to teach kids how to develop self-esteem: You give them something they can’t do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.”

Personally I believe this book should be made compulsory reading in all colleges irrespective of the stream chosen. This is a book which is a ‘self-help’ book without really being one. It’s an inspirational book which makes you want to work harder, try harder and thank God for the little pleasure in life.

I borrowed this book from a library, but now I am going to buy a copy to keep in my collection. This is a book I want my children to read when they grow up. This is a book I want to keep revisiting everytime I feel low, this is a book I will hand over to anyone losing hope and finally this is a book I will cherish.

Randy lost his battle with pancreatic cancer on July 25^th, 2008; but in his “Last Lecture”, he left behind a story to be retold.

In his words “I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children. If I were a painter, I would have painted for them. But I am a lecturer, so I lectured.”

#Thelastlecture #RandyPausch #selfhelp #lessonsinliving #internationalbestseller #life #death #professor

Losing Amma, Finding Home. A memoir about love, loss and life’s detours by Uma Girish.

Age is just a number... you are never too old to outgrow the need for your mother. Her tender care, love and above all the warmth in her kitchen make her indispensible. When my mother passed away in 2013, I missed her but thought she had prepared me enough to survive without her. Survive I did, but not a day passed by without me wishing that she was just a phone call away. During that period when I questioned if I had done enough for her, if I had made her proud and if there had been a way to save her; I chanced upon this beautiful heartfelt book “Losing Amma, Finding Home” A memoir about love, loss and life’s detours by Uma Girish.

This soulful book is ‘a heart-rending narrative of losing a parent, living through the pain and transforming it to discover one’s true calling and life’s purpose’. This is the story of Uma, who barely four weeks after arriving and settling down in Chicago with her husband and fourteen year old daughters hears that her 68 year old mother has been diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. Torn between the need to stay back and help her family settle into a new place, new environment & culture and rush back to India to be by her ailing mother; Uma feels helpless. Like any normal individual, Uma’s first reaction on reading about the cancer in her sister’s email is to turn to God! “I pleaded and bargained with God; convinced myself I was going to wake up from a nightmare any minute now. I raged at HIM; apologized, before pleading and bargaining again.”

In this book, Uma talks about coming to terms with the harsh reality of an ailing parent who might only have a few days left. She is forced to suddenly reverse roles and play a parent to her parents’; she is forced to take decisions, she is forced to sit down and take stock. The chapters following her mother’s demise; I identified with so strongly that even now when I read them I tear up. The shock, the denial, the feeling of despair, the emptiness right to the bottom of your gut... I went through all of that.

From the time I could remember, my mother always spoke about how it was important for a lady to die a sumangali (a married women). Uma too talks about it. “In the Hindu tradition, dying before one’s husband is the highest honour a married woman aspires to. To leave her earthy abode, all of herself – mind, body and soul – to the one man she made vows till her last breath. Her greatest reward comes in death.” My Amma too got her wish. She went a sumangali, dressed in her wedding sari, with a huge bindi on her forehead.

The pain and anguish that her father displays is also so touching. “What will I do without you.... how could you leave me here and go away....” is what he says when he sees her. These are scenes we often see in movies; but reading about it after having seen your father go through the same is heartbreaking.

Uma moves on from there to trying to find herself and find a purpose in life. Slowly she limps back to normal. She finds a job at a retirement home, she takes help of a counsellor and she finds hope.

This is a book where each page made me re-live those months following my mother’s demise. I understand that it was not a cure for my melancholy, but it was release. I had not reacted traditionally when my mother passed away. I had not fainted, or fallen on her, or stretched out, or sat in a corner crying my heart out. Don’t get me wrong’ I did cry.. but silent tears that only she would have understood. Reading this book helped me release all those tears. I cried at night, I cried while reading the book, I cried in the bathroom, I carried when no one was looking. In the end I felt lighter, I felt like I was finally ready to let me mother go free, I was ready to release her from the cage I had put her in.

Now when I think of my mother, I remember her laugh and the way her tummy would shake at my silly antics. I remember her sambar and the crispy star appams she used to make for me. I miss her, I do. I miss her when I write posts from the heart and they get appreciated. I miss her when my daughters’ do something funny and I want to tell her, I miss her every time our Bengali sari seller comes visiting. But now every time I miss her, I see her smiling at me from wherever she is, telling me that she is finally peaceful, free and that she will be with me whenever I need her.  

This book is a thorough tear jerker and will make even the stone hearted weep. This is a book from the heart and for the heart. This is a book for those who have lost a dear one and for those who are looking for help coping with the pain. Finally this book is about finding hope.

Uma Girish is a certified dream coach, grief guide, author, speaker and bereavement volunteer (yes there is such a job) in a hospice. She is passionate about helping women find meaning in their loss and awaken to new purposes. She also facilitates a grief group at a retirement community. You can contact Uma at www.umagirish.com

#LosingAmmaFindingHome #loss #bereavement #amma #mother #pain #cancer #missingsomeone  

Dear Popples, Love Letters From An Unlikely Mother

“It is the job of stories to exemplify and exaggerate goodness. Goodness is not sticky when it is mundane.... If we want a society of goodness, kindness, compassion, courage and excellence we must tell stories of extraordinary goodness, compassion and excellence. And the extraordinarily good, kind, compassionate and courageous is called a hero”

This is what this book “Dear Popples. Love Letters From An Unlikely Mother” by Anouradha Bakshi is all about. It is about compassion, goodness, kindness, courage, extraordinary courage and much more. It is about love, about being drawn towards someone, living lives and most importantly it is about truth.

Simple at best, the book is an easy read and can be read at a stretch of between books or even after years. “Read it straight as you turn the page or read it as per the index. The story will emerge. And it will be the way you wanted it to emerge. In life we don’t often have that privilege” says Anouradha right at the beginning.

The book is a wonderful collection of letters that Anouradha writes to Popples in a bid to explain how he came into her life, how he changed her life and how & why she let him go from her life. Before you make any more assumptions, let me reveal that Popples is a little boy who Anouradha first saw when he shy of being one year old. Unfavorable circumstances and terrible fate landed little Popples in a pot of boiling curry.

“The stage was finally set; all the props and protagonists in place;

the drunken parents, the tiny room with hardly any space and no option

but to keep the stove next to the bed.

It must have been a good day at work as there was a bottle

and also some fish to turn into a spicy treat.

As the fish bubbled happily in the pan, the boy slept soundly

and the inebriated mom stepped out.

The child woke up and not finding his mom tried to get up

and landed in the fish curry pan.”

The doctors at Safdarjung Hospital gave burned, bruised and completely swathed Popples ‘Nil’ chances of survival. From here on, we can get a gist of the story. Anouradha takes in the boy, helps nurse him back to health, gives him an opportunity to have a better life, sends him to a good school, has help pouring in from all quarters and across the world in cash and kind and so on and so forth. Simple!

However, it is not so simple afterall! This is a beautiful story of little Popples who loses everything and yet gains so much. This is the story of Anouradha whose maternal instincts awakes and yet who lets go of Popples because she wants better than the best for him. 

This is the story of Anouradha’s past, about her grandparents & her parents. This is the story of misery, triumph, heartache, longing, love, innocence, maternal instincts and above all of faith, hope, good will and HEROS. This is also the story of ‘Project Why’, an organisation which works with disadvantaged children and women in New Delhi. It reaches out to over 600 children and runs early education programs, prep classes, Primary and Secondary after school support programs, day cares and life skills program for children with disabilities. You can visit www.projectwhy.org to know more.

  

Read “Dear Popples” if you love emotions; read it if you believe in unconditional love and read it simply because you love reading.

Of the many things I took away from this book is the part where Anouradha shares Richard Needham’s quote “Strong people make as many mistakes as weak people. The difference is that strong people admit their mistakes, laugh at them and learn from them. That is how you become strong.” However not all of us are strong and Anouradha goes on to say “My experience of life had shown me something else in this ballet of mistakes and forgiveness, and that is the necessity of moving on and not looking back because the entire merit of forgiving comes to naught if the person is constantly reminded of his or her omission or asked to change the past, something that can never be done as time only moves in one direction. If you forgive, then you must be willing to start anew. That is when you have truly forgiven with your heart.”

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