Alex’s Reviews > Mother Mary Comes to Me > Status Update

And grateful that I hadn’t had to subject a human that I had brought into the world to the kind of anger and resentment my mother often felt for me.

‘When she was born, her birth certificate was an apology from God.’

Imagine his joy had he known that my own mother might have agreed with him. Imagine his sorrow had he known I had the equivalent of navy SEAL training on this subject and that his exertions didn’t move my needle even a micromillimetre.

Bringing up the rear was somebody carrying a large jar of jujubes. She had become obsessed with jujubes.

Arundhati you cheeky minion!! 😂

“It wasn’t nostalgia that took me back so much as the desire to exorcize some of my old ghosts by looking them in the eye, and to hang on to others, to tell them of my great escape. That, I learned, is impossible. We either house all our ghosts, as I do, or unhouse them all, as my brother does. There’s no bargaining with ghosts.”

But what we know isn’t always in line with what we feel, or what we do.

‘If protesting against having a nuclear bomb implanted in my brain is anti- Hindu and anti- national, then I secede. I hereby declare myself an independent, mobile republic. I own no terri-tory. I have no flag.’

I wasn’t Christian enough.
I wasn’t Hindu enough.
I wasn’t communist enough.
I wasn’t enough.

"At every event I could see Pradip in the audience, looking proud, tearing up when I started to read. But it was difficult for him and stressful for me. All the light shone on me. He, grand, wonderful man, my teacher, lover and best friend, was made invisible. He didn’t mind, but I did. The balance in our relationship was upended. My newfound fame crashed into our little love tent & jerked us around like puppets."

G. Isaac began to shake with silent laughter at his own joke.

But I had learned the lesson of a lifetime: how to make friends with defeat. My metaphoric room was full of broken planes, too.
G. Isaac showed me that making friends with defeat is the very opposite of accepting it. For that alone, I forgave him his past cruelty towards us and loved him till the day he died.

That kind of focused, ferocious love, regardless of what it may choose as its object, is a blessed love. The challenge for those of us who are not chosen, and instead watch love pass us by, is to learn from it, marvel at it, and not grow bitter and incapable of love ourselves.

When it came to me, Mrs Roy taught me how to think, then raged against my thoughts. She taught me to be free and raged against my freedom. She taught me to write and resented the author I became.