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.  

Nani at Artist Residence: Day 9

On the last day of residence, though tired from 

cumulative sleep depravation, I woke up even earlier than my 6 am routine. I prepared my ginger tea and headed to the library for my daily meditation before getting to work. 

When I got there, I walked over to the exhibition space and lit a small candle at the altar. I decided to meditate right there, in front of all of my ancestors, in front of all of the stories and images.

Through the residence, I had been terrified of the responsibility of

 telling my family's story. 

I felt a bit intimidated, embarrassed even about sharing such intimate details of my life, of our lives

...diagrams of the building where I grew up, that tender memory of sitting on my grandfather's lap, anecdotes. 

I was especially blocked with how to talk about death. 

In chapter 3 of the book, when my grandfather Dada passes away, 

the dynamic changes. 

It is at this moment that Nani transforms into the super magical character who lives in her suitcase and travels to all of our homes, bringing ceremony and celebration with her.

I had thought that if I managed to finish Chapter 3 during residence, my process once I got back home would be easier. 

I barely began the chapter on the last day of residence, when I realized that I could not rush it. And that more important than actually making the drawings, was all the previous work I had been doing which was helping me to reconcile not only with death, but with taking upon the role of being the family's memory. 

I felt grateful. 

Photos courtesy of CarlosGrassa Toro

La Cala de Chodes

Nani at Artist Residence: Day 8

On the eighth day of residence, I was going to be interviewed and the footage was to be used in the short film that would be produced about my residence, recompiled with all the bits and pieces that had been recorded throughout the week. 

The day before, Carlos Grassa Toro, the creative director of the residence (La Cala de Chodes), told me that he wanted to document me explaining the wall, and that in order to do so in a natural way, it would make more sense for me to have a public and invited his photographic team and some intimate 

friends who run an exhibition space in Zaragoza. 

What I thought to be a half hour of filming turned into an entire afternoon. To say I was nervous would be an understatement, but at the same time 

I was excited to share the work.

Beforehand, I began putting the final touches onto the wall.

It was clear to me that in eight days I wouldn't possibly have been able to map out the entire book. But it was important for me to make all the most important links visible.

Stepping back and looking at the constellation of images, keywords, 

ideas, letters and photos, I began to understand my necessity for telling this story even more.

I also begun to understand just how to tell it. 

Around mid-morning, I realized that if I was the story-teller, I needed to set the stage. I felt the need for ritual and theatre.

So much of what Nani transmitted to me was ritual and ceremony, 

that her honor, I improvised an altar.

And began to tell the story... 

This was the first time I was telling it to people who knew

very little about me, and their reactions helped me learn a lot

about my process. 

Between explaining the wall and the post-celebratory dinner of tandoori chicken, spinach raita and mango lassi, Carlos interviewed me, with the wall as my backdrop.

The film can be viewed here.

Photos courtesy of Rubén Vicente & Grassa Toro
Film courtesy of Rubén Vicente, Beatriz Ballabriga & Grassa Toro

Nani at Artist Residence: Day 7

Chapter 2: Casablanca Nights

From about the fifth evening of my residence, I began to work on the second chapter of the book. Unlike the first, in this one, a lot of my childhood memories appear...the house in which I grew up, 

my only clear memory of my grandfather, Dada the first day he came to visit with Nani. While drawing I remembered the smells of my childhood, the colors, the way I say on Dada's lap when he gave me my present which I have guarded as a treasure and which has has travelled with me to all of my homes. 

I have always felt that during the process of creation I relive the story, a new layer of sensibility awakens within and accompanies me. I receive and understand information that I was once unaware I had. During the residence, and since, this happens a lot. 

Making this book is a constant celebration.

Nani at Artist Residence: Day 6

While drawing Nani's early life, and throughout the book, I decided to allow myself a large space for creative license, for imaginings of my own. These little escapes from the actual facts which mark the structure of the story, began to turn into little wanderings of mine where through research magical coincidences began to surprise me. 

In one of the parting scenes between Nani and Dada, when he leaves for Ghana without her in 1946 to begin to settle their life there, I had written that he leaves by boat. I don't know if he actually did, but I knew that the scene I imagined had to be by boat. 

I began to research boats that would have been used in Sind on the Indus River departing from Hyderabad in 1946, and found this wonderful image. 

The caption accompanying this image reads: Flat bottomed ferry boats are used even today to help travelers cross the Indus River near Mohenjo-Daro. Under the image of the tablet reads: Three sided molded tablet. One side shows a flat bottomed boat with a central hut that has leafy fronds and two birds on the deck and a large double rudder. Discovered in Mohenjo-Daro in 1931. Since iron was not yet discovered in the Bronze Age, the Meluhhan, the Mespotamian and the ships did not have mariner's compass at their disposal.

The Harappan ships probably followed the coastline during daytime; in case they accidentally lost the way and came to open sea, they seem to have kept in their ships birds, which on being released flew towards land and thus showed the way.

Thrilled with my research, I made my image.

And as a final surprise, while hanging it up on the wall, the background music was an old Bengali folk song by Nitin Sawhney which I hadn't heard since my London years, and which I did not understand. When I went over to the computer to read the title of the song I laughed and cried all at the same time. 

It is called The Boatman:

Baroshekar aador meke

Bheshe elam sagor theke

Baleer toteh notun disha

Adar theke alor mesha

Batash bhara bhalo basha

Ke kandare baicho toree aral theke

(Something) caressed with love

I drifted ashore from the sea

The sand shows a new way

The light blends with the darkness

The wind is full of love

Who are you boatman who paddles this boat, 

whom i cannot see

It is little big things like this that make me feel 

that everything is falling into place, 

that the book is growing into what it ought to be.

The song The Boatman talks about exile.

And accompanied me through the next image also.

Photograph of 1947 exile by Margaret Bourke-White. 

 Imagined image of Nani's migration.

When these little big things happen, 

despite the heartbreak that inevitably 

comes with making a book such as this, 

I am filled with strength.