Crying in H mart - Book Review

A few days ago Anisha Gopinath had shared about a book she had read. I always note down good recommendations in my never ending TBR. For some reason, I felt instantly drawn to this book. A book about grief? I wanted to be in the middle of it. 

Although it took me a few days to get through the whole book (because of my schedule) it was always in the back of my mind. I thought it was very simple, baring and unadorning. I am a big fan of writing like that, I yearn to be a writer who can use simple words and sentences but make you feel deep, grand things in your emotions, your memories and your heart. A writer who can just reach out and touch your soul with their pen.

It is written from the girl's POV entirely, but who stood out for me was the mom. The struggle between mothers and daughters it seems is a Universal one. They hurt us trying to love us and we don't know how to be with them when we're grown up. We understand eachother the most, but also face the biggest difficulty in making the other person see us. We are forever separated and tied together in this bond that is mother-daughter. That I thought was so nicely encapsulated in this book. It was a great read, short and engaging. Definitely made me nostalgic for a Korean childhood (that I most definitely did not have and don't have any context for) and made me crave Korean food.

When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife - Book Review

I finally found the time and space to read this book. This one is now off my TBR after patiently waiting for me to arrive at its turn for years. 

This book is a raw account of what a newly-wed, bright, young writer experiences at the hands of her violent, abusive husband. It captures the silent and dehumanising way in which her spirit is broken under the pretense of marriage. It uses how her family reacts to her abuse to remind us what we know in our bones as Indian women- the salty truth about the way every Indian family reacts to abuse- with excuses to persevere; tears, blackmail and silent treatments asking women to prioritise the family's reputation over our physical and mental safety; they even remind you this is normal in India and that women get beaten and raped by their husbands all the time. 

Her storytelling robs you of your ability to overlook such violence and makes it impossible to not take it in. It catches you off-guard with its brutal honesty. There is always something or the other happening to women in this country. There's no inkling of doubt that we are forever in danger as long as we live here. We are not safe in our homes, on the streets or even at work. To me, the crude violence women and girl children endure within the walls of their home, the place that is supposed to keep them safe is the most heartbreaking of them all, because where do you run from there? Whom do you look to for safety, if your family is enabling or atleast complicit in what is happening to you? We tend to think rape and abuse and violence happens to women who stray, who are too modern and not to women who follow the rules. But marital rape and domestic violence happens to married women, women who care and dote after their husbands and this is proof that even when you bow down to the patriarchy and accept it's rules, you still won't be safe, you won't be spared because this system was not meant to keep you safe, in any form or matter anyway.

Little Kindnesses of Women

I'm planning my honeymoon trip last minute. I call my bestfriend to tell her. She is so happy, she tells me her Polaroid camera is mine to take and that she'll pack me some farsan and bhata (food you carry while you travel). I tell another friend, and she has called me home to give me all her nice accessories, 6 different sunglasses and even arranged for her mom to show me earring options if I wanted. On the day I have to leave, my bestfriend's food parcel arrives, neatly packed with cute notes and definitely packed with more quantity than I asked for, along with an extra box of my favourite dish to eat in the airport if I get hungry. And rightly as predicted, I polish the box off before I make it to boarding. ❤️

I'm back from the trip and it is almost the end of the month. My sister tells me she needs to buy another birthday outfit. I ask her what happened to the last one? She casually says I gave it to you for your honeymoon photoshoot. I'm horrified. Why didn't you tell me it was new and that you were saving it for your birthday? She simply says if I did, you wouldn't have taken the dress with you and gotten such beautiful pictures. I'm speechless. She says now help me pick another one. ❤️

I tell myself Indian women are unmatched in their love, they're the best.

It is lunch time, I'm onboard. I'm stood deciding whether to take Basmati rice or sticky rice onto my plate. Cindy (Cinderella) my crew walks in and she's wearing beautiful beige corduroy bottoms which look like the picture of comfort. I tell her I'm obsessed with her pants. She confirms they're indeed very comfortable, we chat for a bit and then go on to eat lunch at our respective tables. Next morning I'm at the mess room again, drinking tea and asking my crew about their jobs while Cindy walks in with a pair of black corduroy pants in her hands saying she has another pair of those comfy pants that I really liked and asked if I wanted to try them. She says "it has some elastic at the waist, you should try it Chief and if it fits you, you should take it". I tell her but I'm not even close to your size and we laugh. I'm so touched. ❤️

It is a bright, chilly morning in Antwerp, Belgium. I've gotten permission to go ashore. After an unexpected visit from the port authorities in the morning, I'm running to my cabin to shower and get ready. I shout out to my Chinese cadet on the way to fill up my water bottle too. A few hours later, we're on the road and I'm thirsty, I take a sip and the water is very warm and not what I expected. I make a face. She sees me and says "Chief iss very cold ousside you know, you needa drink hot-uh wat-ur, not cold-uh wat-ur. Iss no good for you" 

*dismissive hand action*

I have zero complaints after that ❤️

It is a hot day in Lagos, Nigeria. We've already finished 4 ship-to-ship operations, with 2 more to go. The routine has become so tiring and machine-like. There has been very little rest interspersed in between way too much action. I had skipped breakfast that day because we were called in an hour early. When I came back later to grab a toast and some tea, I noticed a small packet of 4 biscuits. I ripped it open in hunger and was pleasantly surprised by the sweet and salty, midly spicy and herby taste. It was fantastic. I turned the packet around to find it was made in Bangladesh, even though the taste was so familar to me I assumed it was Indian. I made a mental note to ask my Bangladeshi Engine Cadet about it. When I ask her later, she is so happy that I would like a simple biscuit so much. I tell her it reminds me of Maska Chaska. Few days later she catches me on the staircase and hands me 7-8 more packets saying "ma'am I want you to have this". I refuse instantly, she is a cadet, a child. Ofcourse I couldn't take from her. I tell her she's going to stay longer onboard and she would need it more than me. She asks me not to worry and thrusts them into my palms with a smile. She says please have it for me, it will make me happy ❤️

I walk down with all the biscuit packets in my hand when I run into the Bangladeshi Fifth Engineer coming back from the Engine Room. She recognises the biscuits and asks me, I tell her what happened with the Engine Cadet and how grateful I was for all the love. She is amused, she only listens and smiles the whole time. Later I find another 6-7 packets of the biscuit left quietly on my table, this time from the Fifth Engineer who says she wanted to give me some too ❤️

I'm starting to think it's an Asian women thing.

I've barely been onboard 2 weeks. One day I notice 2nd officer's different looking beverage mug. I ask her about it. She shows me with excitement how it has an attached tea strainer and I'm thoroughly impressed with the design. I quickly search for it on Amazon but cannot find it. She hands over duty to me and goes down to rest in her cabin. A few minutes later, she is back with her phone in her hand, asking me to pick a color. I see the same mug on the screen on a shopping website. I say- but how do I get it? I don't live in the Philippines. She says she'll order it to her house and have it Dunzo-ed to anyone who is joining next from Manila to bring it onboard. Before I could politely say no I don't want to be of any trouble, she has already placed the order. We don't even know when the next crew change might happen, but the kindness in her didn't need all that information. I tell her I need more things from the website just so she won't refuse my money when I pay. ❤️

It's after dinner. I've eaten something wrong and I have severe indigestion. I have terrible nausea and stomach pain followed by diarrhoea throughout the night. I cannot catch even a few undisturbed minutes of sleep except when I'm resting on the toilet waiting for the next wave to hit. The next morning I'm given a sick day and told to rest. My Chinese cadet at lunch time, texts me full sentences asking about my "abdominal pain and distension"- using words I know that she doesn't yet have in her very limited vocabulary. She is using Google translate to enquire about my health and talk to me. ❤️

We are all in the recreation room talking about silly, random, happy, good things while listening to our fellow Filipino crew singing karaoke. When we talk about weight, I mention I have PCOS and my Third Engineer asks me what it means. I explain it to her to the best of my ability. She is very sympathetic. A few days later she is at my doorstep with a yogurt container. I'm confused. She opens it and it is actually filled with flax seeds, not yogurt. She tells me she read online about PCOS and learnt that seed cycling helps, so she brought what she had with her to share with me. She gives me instructions on how to consume it and checks with me every now and then if I've started ❤️

Dawn is breaking and morning light is slowly flooding into the previously pitch dark wheelhouse. I can now see the shape of an unusual little glass bottle on the chart table. My chief-officer-ears perk up 'was somebody drinking alcohol from a sample bottle on duty?' I go closer to pick it up and it says "Katinko oil" on the label, "used for all pains and aches. Made in the Philippines". I open the bottle and take in the smell, a familiar note hits my nose- Axe oil. It smells so similar to axe oil and all the other menthol oils that my family is addicted to and I've grown fond of. I tell my cadet about it. She asks my permission to go down and bring her own version of it, a Chinese pain relief oil. My Filipino third officer, the owner of the Katinko oil bottle has also joined us on the bridge. We exchange our balms and oils with eachother giggling at this guilty pleasure. My third officer without a second thought tells me she would leave me her bottle when she signs off in a few days, because I said I liked it and it reminded me of home. ❤️

So many different women, all with the same thread of love and kindness innately woven into their beings. I've seen this quality over and over again in the women around me, across ages. They tap into this natural ability to be kind and beautiful without any prompt, any cue. If they see you enjoy something, they'll stock more of it at home. If they know you like a particular color, they will video call you from the store when they see something they think will look nice on you. They will cook you your favourite food and remember things that are important to you. They will excite with you and worry with you. Women are the gold standard. Women make this world an infinitely better place. ❤️

When Breath Becomes Air - Book Review

I am terribly heartbroken, there is truly no other way to explain how deeply moved and bereaved I feel on completing this book. I bought this book nearly 3 years ago as soon as I saw my friend Snegha Ananth's instagram post. I don't know why I set it aside for so long but the timing is almost unbelievable (for me to decide I wanted read a book about death at a time like now). I only wish I had finished this book back at home, where I still had the chance to run into the next room and hug everyone. 

This book is riddled with Dr Paul Kalanithi's thoughts, emotions and unavoidable pain through his cancer diagnosis and treatment. His writing is honest-to-God a blessing upon us all. I had to stop every now and then just to admire the depth and ease with which he wrote, the ascendancy with which he quoted poets and writers. I cannot get over many many paragraphs of this book where he proves himself to be simple, profound, a brilliant mind, and a true genius. One example would be:

"As graduation loomed, I had a nagging sense that there was still far too much unresolved for me, that I wasn’t done studying. I applied for a master’s in English literature at Stanford and was accepted into the program. I had come to see language as an almost supernatural force, existing between people, bringing our brains, shielded in centimeter-thick skulls, into communion. A word meant something only between people, and life’s meaning, its virtue, had something to do with the depth of the relationships we form. It was the relational aspect of humans—i.e., “human relationality”—that undergirded meaning. Yet somehow, this process existed in brains and bodies, subject to their own physiologic imperatives, prone to breaking and failing. There must be a way, I thought, that the language of life as experienced—of passion, of hunger, of love—bore some relationship, however convoluted, to the language of neurons, digestive tracts, and heartbeats."

Many a books have been good, even great, but for a book's foreword and epilogue to also win my heart, this should be a first. Must must must read. Easily one of the best books I've ever read. Tell me if you've read it, I would love to share favorite quotes with you. ❤️

26 Feb 2019

The Covenant of Water - Book Review

*contains spoilers*

I started listening to 'The Covenant of Water' (on Audible) almost 3 months ago. Like many other books (or any projects) I've undertaken in the last few years, I slouched through it. I didn't respect it enough and give it the time and effort a good book really deserves. And when I did start, I was extremely put off even angered by the way Abraham Verghese quite casually wrote about and romanticized underage sex in the beginning with little Mariamma. Although he was very delicate with her fears and feelings when she was 12, he somehow figured she stopped being a child when she was 16?! I understand that the Parambil story takes place in the early 1900s, that the circumstances and the plot are all a product of their time; but I also think as an author who has the power of influence, he has the obligation to reference history as it was without glorifying it, without making his writing rosy and nostalgic for a past where some things were considered normal, while infact they are wildly inappropriate (now and then). It's not that the author is incapable of this fine distinction, I found his dialogue on caste and the abhorrence of the girl child very well done. I immediately sided with Big Ammachi, I wanted to slap Philipose when he stepped back from his baby girl. I was most pleasantly surprised when Joppan-in a very nuanced but strong way- brought up the privileged oversight of his bestfriend and his family towards the pulayars' contribution. Those were honestly my favourite parts of the whole book. I felt like the author failed me monumentally not once but twice by allowing the 'much older man-very young woman' dynamic to play out, seeking the reader's validation of the couple with emphasis on the girl's consent. Either time it DID NOT sit well with me. Was little Mariamma really old enough to consent? And isn't it the older person's obligation, I'd argue duty, to reject such advances? How young is really old enough for a man stop to seeing a child as a child? And how much age gap is really acceptable before the man finds it creepy? Especially when you knew the girl as a 7-8yo child and you were in your 20s? I felt for both the girls, wanting to run into the book and save them. 

When I decided on this book, one of the reasons I picked it was it's length. I wanted to have something I could listen to in parts, over a long period of time while I'm onboard. I was confident I wouldn't be able to get through it at home, I mean it was 34h worth of content. However, the stunning narration, the little sprinkles of jokes interspersed throughout the book, the ease with which the author changed accents, the way the characters grew on me, the slow-but-never-boring-for-even-a-second story extended over 3 generations of the same family, the same house and village, all made it impossible for me to put it down. I was so into it, I'd spend hours listening to the book throughout my day. I was completely and easily transported to 'pandathe' Kerala within minutes. I particularly loved the pre-independence details, the development of characters, the depth in which 'The Condition' and 'Leprosy' or any medicine in this book was discussed (I'm a nut for medicine). 

I see why it is such an acclaimed book and Abraham Verghese's un-heavy, thorough, well-rounded writing deserves it. Despite my aversion to some parts, I'd still count this one among the top books I've had the pleasure to read.