What We Carry - Maya Shanbhag Lang

Every bit beautiful and very relatable - that is What We Carry by Maya Shanbhag Lang for you in short, a memoir that acknowledges “life is always more complicated than easy answers permit”.

The author here details her personal journey into motherhood while unraveling many secrets her mother (a successful psychiatrist in the USA, an Indian immigrant) safeguarded on the same subject for years. She is let into this ‘closet of stories’ when her mother loses her independence & stature while slipping gradually into a void created by severe Alzheimer’s in her old age. 

From turning to her mother for advice at the drop of the hat, marking her as the first and primary recipient of all information (both minor and significant) to becoming her primary caregiver for one whole year and preserver of her past, What we Carry poignantly chronicles the journey of the mother daughter duo over time. The ripples that the three women connected by blood from different generations feel with the author serving as a bridge between the past (her mother) and the future (her kindergartener daughter Zoe) is rendered beautifully. She writes, “May be at our most maternal, we aren't mothers at all. We are daughters reaching back in time for the mothers we wish we’d had and then finding ourselves”.

The book speaks to women very intimately for every woman always has some unfinished business with her mother, an urge to know how her mother did all that she managed to at different points in her lifetime. The elixir of a woman's strength lies in the simple thought - if my mom could, I too can. 

The connect with the book is deeper if the reader is a mother too. Not bragging about motherhood, but saying that based on a plain truth that every mother receives few fast track lessons during her postpartum period, a daunting one, that stays etched in her memory. She is compelled to learn to let go, to say no, to steer away from an ‘all appeasement policy’ as her tiny tot bombards her time and senses, and these lessons eventually culminate in her accepting that whatever she does, she will be scrutinized, graded and judged. 

Men too will appreciate the book for the author stays afloat in turbulent waters thanks to her very supportive husband, her understanding and pragmatic elder brother, her highly motivating gym trainer whose lines we will want to set in wooden plaques to adorn our walls with. 

Be it in depicting the power of stories, the necessity to acknowledge life truths without morphing it, the decline and disappearance into an oblivion with the onset of old age, the need to solidify your sense of self, the book scores a perfect ten in handling all these topics.

There are heartwarming moments when the author talks of siblings being polar opposites, when she shares her preschooler daughter's definition of home - "Home is where you go when everything is closed. Like when Ben and Jerry's is closed and the park is closed and the library is closed, you go home. Home is the place that's always open."

You are left moist eyed when you read the author's mother, an expert in geriatrics and psychiatry, (who lived in thrift, planned her future meticulously, bore the brunt of a toxic marriage while helping countless patients out of their mental health problems) spirals helplessly down the vortex of dementia -forgetting to eat, cook and imagining her own children causing her harm.

I loved What We Carry singularly for it showed motherhood as hugely transformative and not menacingly sacrificial. Every woman feels pangs of guilt for choosing herself over her child (even if momentarily) and What We Carry through the life experiences of the author and her mother reveals that choosing oneself doesn’t mean deserting the child entirely. You just need to ‘hang in there’ and you will find a middle ground where you and your child both can flourish with confidence. 

In about 260 pages, divided into three sections, with short chapters, this book is extremely readable. Perhaps, the final section cut short by a few pages would have preserved the overall crispness but that is just a minor grouse in this book that very beautifully asserts “The telling of stories isn’t a pastime. It isn't a way to distract us from life. It is life”. 

Short Stories by Gracy

 

"My dearest readers, your question is why my stories never traverse the luminous paths of life. It is not that you are not aware that all the paths of this world are being taken over by darkness. Since those responsible are human beings, what is the point of being disappointed that I am not a storyteller who spreads light?"

36 stories in about 210 pages (their length mostly varying from one to about 5-7 pages the last entry being the longest one, a novelette) - each one delivers a punch in the gut, pierces the heart with ice daggers, leaves us with unblinking eyes and dropped jaws.

Baby Doll, It is Winter now on Earth, The End of a Naive Romance are few that hold you by the scruff of your neck and tell "Don't cringe, this happens in our society".

Gracy gives ghosts as much right as the living on the Earth for in her stories spectral visions and apparitions regularly give us creeps. Illusory Visions, Orotha and the Ghosts, Theechamundi, Coming Home, Kallu are few such instances.  

Failed marriages, drunkard husbands, women who entice, harass and suffer, dysfunctional families and crushed childhood make up the scape of this collection.

The author's candour in dealing with infidelity, female sexuality, man-woman relationships or when taking a dig at religion/caste will stun you. Her use of Devi Mahatmyam, references to Kunti (in A Raindrop in Summer) and Draupadi (in Panchali) in her stories show use of her clever imagination. Her use of metaphor in storytelling is classy; rabbits and lizards as protagonists, a train as a witness to few worldly mishaps on the route it travels, a man (in story Doomsday) telling how numbers taunt him endlessly are some fine examples.

These stories where violence and macabre do a cool jig, are loaded with the scents, sights and local folklore of Kerala. Though largely grim, there is little humour too that shifts from dry (in Denouement) to cynical (in Ball, This is Joseph's story, Anna's too). Some stories end brusquely in violence to the extent of confounding us.

With translation and editing taken care of by EV Fathima and Mini Krishnan, readers are guaranteed a wonderful reading experience. This Harper Perennial edition bundles up a translator’s note and an interview of the author by the translator in its insights section which provides a comprehensive understanding of the author’s writing style and personal life episodes that shaped it.

The collection is like a potent medicine that works better when consumed in measured doses with intervals in between. It definitely helps clear our clouded vision of the society, one that is marred by toxic patriarchy and heavy misogyny. And for such a work, the title chosen - a popular Bollywood number should hopefully not downplay the importance.

Baby Doll : Short Stories by Gracy makes an instance where the more we think of the stories , the more we get knotted in our own words/thoughts and to disentangle ourselves, it definitely takes time.