It came yesterday and I couldn’t wait for 3 more days before I shared it with the boy. It had been months of planning and I was not for once sure I’d be able to make it in time.
But it had – My first Book had been published!
Like so many other things, my child had made this possible for me, even without having a clue about it.
Because in being a parent, I push myself, nudge through things in a way I would never have otherwise. From taking life changing decisions to battling mosquitoes and insects, braving through impossible circumstances or cleaning dusty shelves endlessly I find that my kids can motivate me to do anything. ANYTHING!
Writing this book started as a whim – A conversation between him and me, wondering about his future, his questions about my past. He asked again, and again, in different ways, he was curious how we turn out to be who we were.
I didn’t have the answers but as I told my Illustrator in my first email,
“I want him to know the world is limitless.”
So I wrote something for him and set out to create it in the form he loves best – A Book.
One that you can hold and smell, that grows with you, that changes colour with you and sends you reminders of time and people bygone.
And so what started with a few questions and this first sketch, survived so much self-doubt, so many unknowns and became this.
After all, We can BE and DO anything we choose!
It is not very often one comes across a work that communicates in soulful simplicity emotions so deep and complex, that are likely to stagger between the said and the unsaid even if one picks up the choicest of words spoken in the best of ambiance.
This book is unique because it is more of a mother’s soul chat with her children… no amount of direct conversations would have done what this book is capable of doing – more reassuring than a hundred direct talks or sermons. Such is the power of images, motifs and archetypes infused with resonant words…it goes deep into the very psyche of the person and the message conveyed only becomes more endearing in its import as time goes by.
The author has created something not just for her children…but for many mothers and their children as well. Many mothers around the world would be finding themselves choked to tell their kids in a way that lasts just when they are making their initial strides : “my child, become what you dream of…i am there to support and encourage”. Apart from this the book accomplishes the difficult task to gently debunk stereotypes associated to different professions…it elevates dreams and aspirations to a realm of dignity and grace that is purely defined by the meaning and joy one finds in doing what one loves. This is what makes the book so precious.
The illustrator did a fabulous job at creating the visual environs that nourished and delivered the narrative so evocatively well.