#34: A Small Miracle
The mad love of storybooks, Neil Gaiman, and our inner children
Dear reader,
In my last letter, I really wanted to write about the beauty of reading - but ironically enough, my words failed me. Despite finding myself surrounded by writers all of a sudden, it’s something I haven’t been doing as often as I used to. However, recently, inspiration arrived in a little brown envelope.
If you had a peek into my life late this February, you would have met a mad girl. I was taking my house apart, searching for a book with the feverish focus only those gripped by excellent literature can muster.
After hours of useless searching, I came to the conclusion that that book of tales was lost, either in India or Dubai or somewhere else where I’d absentmindedly dropped it at the age of eight. Then came the hours of scrolling - I had to get my hands on this book somehow, so I turned to the Internet. Everywhere I found it, the label ‘Out of Print’ stared at me, snickering, pushing me to give up.
So as a last resort, I hunted for the author and any way of contacting her. After I found an email address, I sat with it. Should I send an e-mail? Would it even be seen? What was the point of all this anyway? I’d probably never see that cover again, never smell those pages, never relive those stories.
All I remembered of the book was a story of Persian princes, with a huge dog-faced, eagle-bodied creature. A white-haired king. Horses. Talismans. Swirls of a baby born out of an egg wrapped in cloth. Boys that turned into bears and stars and pine trees. Something about a God who sought war on naughty children. These stories captured my entire world back then, the images turning into movies of the mind. It was like having your eyelids peeled back to the workings of the world. Nothing about it made sense, but everything did. I had to get back to that feeling of total awe and magic. I had to e-mail Rohini Chowdhury.
So I did, already embarrassed at my actions. The world is still too big to expect a reply from someone you never met, right? Who was I, expecting something like that? This is the kind of thing only teenagers in the 70s would do, back when people still talked to each other, not at each other.
I’m glad I hit send though, because it turns out there’s still a part of the world that does talk to each other. A few hours later, Rohini herself was in my inbox, thanking me (what?! thanking me??) and offering to send me one of her own copies of the book.
Saying I was ecstatic was putting it mildly. Not only did I get a reply, I was about to get a whole piece of my childhood handed to me by the author herself. Last week, The Three Princes of Persia: Children in World Myth came to my front door. And I’m fascinated to be able to read it with a whole new perspective and understanding of her work, nearly 20 years after the first time. Things like this are such a testament to the wonders of the modern world - from production to memory to communication to connection. Even more importantly, here was a book that centered itself on children in world myth: highlighting the characters of the young, the mischievous, the innocent, characters that can so easily be relegated to the sidelines by adults with things to say. If anything, this was proof that it all matters: art, work, childhood, and managing your sensitivity to all of these at the same time. I think it’s Ursula Le Guin who said:
“The creative adult is the child who survived.”
Artists, writers, if you are reading this - your work matters. What you have to say, what you have to make, and what you believe in, matters. Readers, art enthusiasts, your voice matters. We’re on a speck of a planet with no one to talk to but each other: and the things we have to learn from the people around us are absolutely incredible.
Here’s what I’ve been learning about:
The Spy Who Inspired 007: My podcast of choice while painting these days.
Art Matters: Neil Gaiman’s words of hope for when you feel like you should’ve been doing something more conventional.
The New Look: A beautifully written TV show retelling the making of Christian Dior (who himself is wonderfully childlike - Ben Mendelsohn’s performance is such a dream to watch). You can stream it on Apple TV.
Wishing you unbridled joy,
Kaav
I teared up reading this. You've lit a lamp in my chest Kaav.