Memory

As I am nearing the end of the book, I have begun to think a lot about what exactly it is I am doing. Why have I chosen to tell this story? Or did it choose me? 

Five years ago, before I even began this story, I made this illustration in a workshop. 

Something about it struck me. Something about the simplicity of the lines paired with the words managed to capture the essence of my Nani, whose larger than life personality had always overwhelmed me. Was this the beginning of it all? 

Did I begin to unveil my desire to capture that essence at that moment? 

Years of research followed. 

I sketched and wrote.

I collected fragments of information, I interviewed tons of family members, and spent my days following Nani around, filming her, recording her voice. And now, while at the final stages of the book, I begin to ask myself: 

How did the narration structure itself so intuitively? 

How did I decide what to include and what to leave out? 

How have anecdotes, references and moments that are not explicitly written about managed to make themselves a way into the book, through symbols or through little details? 

But most of all, I have been thinking a lot about memory. 

About my memory. Remembering is magic. 

Every time I remember I see or learn something new:

something that was perhaps there, or something I needed to add to 

understand the story better. 

I chose to remember my childhood this way...in a collection of facts mixed together with fantasy, humor and a lot of poetic license. 

Some of the facts aren't quite exact. Some of the memories actually happened sooner or later but were switched around 

to make the story read and flow more naturally. 

This is not to say that I have been clumsy. To the best of my efforts, I have tried to be as precise as possible.  

I have tried above all to stay true to the essence of who I am, of the story I want to tell. It's a simple story really: 

that of a grandmother who through her sweets, her stories, her magic, her travels manages to weave together a family strewn across the world with a link of love and celebration.

Such things need to be remembered. 

Nani´s energy

Chapter 5, Snowy walks in Demarest, goes through 

Nani´s visit to New Jersey to visit her grand daughters 

Anjali and Sandhya and their parents. 

A recurring anecdote among all of us cousins is how the first night

we ever shared a bed with Nani, we would be shaken out of sleep in the wee wee hours of the morning thinking there was an earthquake.

The earthquake was always turned out to be 

Nani´s tremendous energy as she would do her 

bed-yoga routine to begin her day.

Here is a small table of her routine.

Nani's energy always seemed endless. She woke up before the break of dawn, and throughout the day would exercise, cook, knit, sew, talk on the phone to family members far away, tell stories. And she would do it all with a great big smile on her face, that would sometimes break out into a thunderous cackle of contagious laughter.

Nani's cooking was the taste of home, of her Sindh. 

But more delicious than the taste of the food was the way she could make cooking up a feast seem so effortless and easy. 

The Arrival

Soon after her departure, I finished Chapter 3 of Nani's book 

and began Chapter 4: Nani's Visits. 

The chapter shows her first trip to Casablanca as a widow, and it was moving and bittersweet to draw her coming home to visit us so soon after she had left. 

 Parallel to her arrival, the chapter celebrates Diwali, the festival of lights, and possibly my favorite day of the year. 

During the Diwali ceremony, Ganesha is invoked to clear obstacles.  The Goddess Laxmi is also welcomed into the home to bring prosperity and wealth. 

The symbol of her footprints is often painted with color pigment (Rangoli) at the entrance of the home to welcome her.

During the many preparatory rituals, the house is thoroughly cleaned. This ritual is called Safai.

Sweets (mithais) are prepared and rangoli and oil lamps (diyas)

decorate the entrance of the home.

Drawing this chapter, I missed Nani terribly. 

I looked back through my childhood memories 

and found so many little details I had forgotten. 

All of them were love.

The Departure

While working on Chapter 3, and processing the death of my grandfather 33 years ago, Nani was taken ill. I allowed myself to process through the grief and my feelings through my work. I began to prepare for her departure, as I was drawing and writing about my grandfather's departure all those years ago, almost to the day. 

I began to read a lot about death, and when visiting Nani in Casablanca, I reread the Katha Upanishad (below an excerpt from Eknath Easwaran's translation), a dialogue between Nachiketa (a young child prince) and Yama (the God of Death). 

NACHIKETA

Teach me of That you see as beyond right

And wrong, cause and effect, past and future.

YAMA

I will give you the Word all the scriptures

Glorify, all spiritual disciplines

Express, to attain which aspirants lead

A life of sense-restraint and self-naughting.

It is O M. This symbol of the Godhead

Is the highest. Realizing it one finds

Complete fulfillment of all one's longings.

It is of the greatest support to all seekers.

Those in whose hearts O M reverberates

Unceasingly are indeed blessed

And deeply loved as one who is the Self.

The all-knowing Self was never born,

Nor will it die. Beyond cause and effect,

This Self is eternal and immutable.

When the body dies, the Self does not die.

If the slayer believes that he can slay

Or the slain believes that he can be slain,

Neither knows the truth. The eternal Self

Slays not, nor is ever slain.

Hidden in the heart of every creature

Exists the Self, subtler than the subtlest,

Greater than the greatest. They go beyond

Sorrow who extinguish their self-will

And behold the glory of the Self

Through the grace of the Lord of Love.

To help me visualize him, I found this image of Yama which I carried with me over the days.

Of course, he too found his way into the book...

I contemplated the idea of the Self. 

I thought much about death and loss, about light, 

energy, stars and constellations. 

I also thought much about life, and mostly about Nani's life.

I thought about her very many homes...

I began to think of death as celebration...

celebration of life, of all the moments I was lucky 

enough to share with her, of all the stories 

and recipes she generously gave me.

Garuda, the Bird God

Chapter 3 came together very slowly. 

It was hard for me to draw and imagine 

my grandfather in his final days.

I plunged into the details, to distract myself from the 

solemnity of the task at hand. 

After a few weeks, my publisher Irene from Ekaré came to visit me and look through the work.

She entered the studio with a package delicately wrapped in white tissue paper. Before beginning our session, she said she had to show me something. As she unwrapped the package she told me it was the first second-hand book she had ever bought, and that she had purchased it in Germany in 1978 (the year of my birth).

It was a catalogue of an exhibition of Indian miniature paintings.

She said that looking through the new work, she couldn't stop thinking about how miniaturist my drawings had become, and wanted to show me the catalogue.

It was wonderful...all the details, the colors. 

And then, I came across a page and stopped dead in my tracks.

It was this image of the Bird God, Garuda, carrying Rama and Sita on his back and flying to the skies. 

Irene asked me what the matter was when she saw my reaction, so I pulled out a sketch I had made two years earlier. It was similar in so many ways, and my version had been lacking in details.

Seeing this miniature would eventually help me resolve what for me is one of the most crucial scenes of the book.

It was exactly what I needed.

When writing and planning this part of the book, I had thought

that this moment should be the first divine and fantastical one. 

And that before departing, my grandfather would transform into Garuda and take Nani on a ride through the skies and show her all the homes of her children where she would now live.

It would be a scene that mixes magic, fantasy, Bollywood kitsch,

love, sadness and celebration.

I had been so blocked and reluctant to make this image, 

and all of a sudden, I could think of nothing else...

Returning from Residence

Before leaving residence, rather than rush through Chapter 3, 

I instead worked on my glossary of symbols. 

In the book, every chapter has two borders with special symbols on the top and bottom. 

Each reveal a lot about the story and there will be a glossary at the end of the book to explain all of them. 

Writing and researching helped me connect with 

all the details of the book, and realize how many

little memories and hidden meanings crawl over all of the drawings.

After finishing the glossary, 

and finishing the final notes on the wall, 

I began to prepare my departure.

I bid my dear friend Vaca farewell.

Took a last glimpse at the flowering trees, 

and set on my way. 

I was curious as to how my rhythm of work would evolve 

back in Madrid, bustled by so many distractions and daily obligations.

And then the day after returning from residence, I received a wonderful gift. My friend Eric who runs a wonderful start-up called U2Guide had just moved into the private office spaces one floor

up from my co-working studio. His space was large, full of light

and currently empty while he was waiting to recruit his team.

He invited me up for a coffee and gave me a set of keys, so that I could come in and draw whenever I wished. 

The light was unbelievable. 

As was the timing...I had been especially worried about 

working on Chapter 3 in a public space with many people. 

Having access to this private space made me feel in sorts that I had an extension on my residence.

I began to work on Chapter 3: Departing Pune.

I drew trees.

I drew how I imagined Paradise building, 
the building my grandfather owned and lived in time 
and again in Pune, before passing away.

I added details such as Mum's Beatles posters in the cupboard, 

or the sewing machine she and her sisters 

used to make fashionable dresses on. 

Although I had returned from residence, 

I was able to connect completely with the work. 

It was as if over there, something so profoundly basic in my creative process had transformed, and that from 

that moment I would be able to enter entirely into 

the book every time I sit down to work on it.