Poornima Manco

Author

belief

Up close and personal

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Loss is universal. It is something each one of us will encounter at some point in our lives. Yet, how we deal with it is an intensely personal experience. Some of us will rage against the unfairness of it, some will accept it as our due, others will go into a state of denial, others still will perhaps find unhealthy crutches to lean on. No matter how we process loss, one thing we can be utterly and completely sure of is that we will be touched by it.

My own biggest loss was that of my mother. I was 27, newly married, living over 4000 miles away, and still trying to come to terms with the separation that my career and now, marriage had created between us. My mother had been my fulcrum for most of my life. She was the strongest, bravest, most beautiful lady that I had looked up to for nearly two decades. However, she was not without her faults, and as I grew out of my teens and set foot into my twenties, suddenly, for some unknown reason, her inadequacies were all I could focus on. Perhaps, that was Nature’s way of making sure that I would be able to fly the nest. But how hurtful it must have been for her to see this daughter, her only child, the one who had previously idolised her, turn cold and indifferent. Thankfully, that state did not last long. Sadly though, much before I could tell her how much she meant to me and how much I loved her, she was gone.

Everything I write today, is in some way or the other, dedicated to her. I can only hope to be half of the woman she was.

The Intimacy of Loss, my first novella, deals with the loss of innocence, the splintering of a family and the loss of a society’s morality. Puja is a teenage girl grappling with her sense of self, the dynamics of friendships and family ties and a strange, inexplicable bond that springs up between her and an outcast of society. It is a tale laced with loss, but also with love and hope.

I hope it is one my mother would be proud of.

You can buy the book at:

The Intimacy of Loss: A Novella

Don’t forget to review it once read. All your feedback is immensely valuable to me. Many thanks and happy reading. 🌹

Success redefined

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Success means different things to different people. For some, it may be about fame and fortune, scaling professional heights, becoming a household name, amassing riches; for others, it may be about conquering fears, learning a new language, travelling the world, discovering a cure for cancer; for others still, it may be about finding joy in the ordinary and the mundane, about paring back and appreciating the little things, just waking up healthy and whole every morning and being able to put one foot in front of the other.

My idea of success has changed a lot over the years. As a young girl, success to me meant being the best in my chosen field of endeavour. I was competitive and found it hard to settle for being second, especially in the areas I felt I dominated in. English language, elocution competitions, story writing, dance and drama were all arenas I felt I needed to prove myself as being better than my peers.

In time, life softened the sharper edges of my ambition. I realised that I didn’t need to be better than anyone else to know that I was good. If there was any competition to be had, it was with my former self. The idea was to be better than the person I was yesterday, and by better, not just professionally or artistically, but also in my everyday life, as a human being, a colleague, a wife, a daughter and mother. 

As years went by and other priorities asserted themselves, ambition to prove myself took a back seat to my navigating life and all its ups and downs. I wasn’t spared loss or grief. I wasn’t spared guilt or regret either. I learnt that one could plan as much as one wanted, but life would laugh in the face of those plans and everything could and would collapse like a house of cards. At that time, success to me was just making it from one day to the next.

Well into my fourth decade of life, I consider myself fortunate in the many blessings that I have been bestowed with. I am healthy, first and foremost. I have a loving family, a career that I enjoy, a hobby that I can spend time and money on, a small but trustworthy group of friends I can call upon if needed, and a mind that takes none of it for granted.

What success means to me today is very different from what it meant all those years ago. To see my children happy and healthy, to see my husband enjoy his career and thrive in it, to be able to connect with friends all over the world, in some shape or form, and to be able to write this blog or my books, constitutes success. This may seem very mediocre to some, but to me, it is enough.

I’m sure if you were to ask me twenty years from now, my idea of success would have changed once again. It is a moving target after all. My point is never to get bogged down in the details of what success should look like. It is what it looks like to you, and that is and should be an evolving thing. After all, in the eternally wise words of Maya Angelou: “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”

Unfinished business

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I hate leaving things incomplete, whether that is chores, books or relationships. Nearly everything I start, I like to finish (or at least finish in my mind). It is a personal quirk of mine, and can be quite an annoying one, especially if you have to suffer through an argument where I refuse to give up till I have the last word. Ask my husband.

I’ve always known that I have this trait, but I was reminded of this quite recently when it came to a television show I’d been watching. ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is a show I’d invested in quite heavily. Aside of the excellent book it is based upon, and the terrifying parallels it displayed of the world we live in currently, I thought it had been translated brilliantly to the small screen. The first season at any rate. The second season went beyond the source material, and for a while, exhibited all the signs of soaring beyond the original text to something deeper, darker, with even more resonance. Then I saw the end, and without spoiling anything for anyone wishing to watch the show, the victim turned vigilante twist was a little too much to stomach.

Never mind, I thought. The third season is bound to be better. I struggled through the first six episodes, slowly and quietly getting desensitised to the horrific, brutal acts against the women in the show. Wasn’t I meant to be appalled, to be enraged? Why was it having this counter-intuitive effect on me? Still, I carried on watching, in the hope that this now depressing tale would offer me some glimmer of hope.

After episode six I went on holiday. When I came back, I completely forgot to watch the rest of the season being broadcast on catch-up television. Upon finally remembering that oh yes, I still have seven odd episodes to watch, I was mildly annoyed to discover that I could only pick it up from episode 10 onwards. This is where my conundrum lies.

Do I just forget about the entire thing, as I wasn’t really enjoying it anymore? The only thing that had me hooked was the stellar cast, but the storyline itself was so mired in confusion and sado-masochism that it had put me right off. Or, should I just pick up from episode 10 and see it through till the end, filling the gaps with guesswork?

Sadly, I’m unable to do either. I hate leaving things unfinished, even shows that aren’t grabbing me anymore, especially if I’ve invested a significant amount of time in them. Nor am I one of those people who skim watches stuff, quite content to ignore the minutiae that the story is built upon. So, what do I do?

I have abandoned just one book in recent history. A book that had me so depressed that I was physically unable to turn another page. Guess what? That bothers me still. Particularly as it’s hailed as a modern classic, and I wasn’t able to finish it!!

Which also highlights the irony of my own writing journey. My stories rarely have all loose ends tied up, I often leave the ending open to interpretation and they are largely quite dark in their subject matter. Do I have any right to complain then if someone leaves midway through my book? I guess not.

Life is messy and unpredictable. With the best will in the world, not everything one starts will be completed. And that’s okay. As long as you are enjoying the journey, little else matters.

As for my show, I’m just going to wait for the entire thing to drop on Amazon Prime, and then over a weekend, a bottle of wine and a bag of crisps, pick up where I left off. If the end doesn’t please me, I won’t bother with season 4. There’s way too much life to be lived, without worrying about unfinished business…

 

 

 

Decisions, decisions…

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Doesn’t life seem to be a series of decisions sometimes? Good ones, bad ones, little and large ones, accidental ones, subconscious ones and well thought out ones too. Yet, at the moment of decision making, we have no way of knowing what the consequences of that decision will be. Sure, you can probably predict that if you don’t take a shower for a week, you’ll stink. So taking a shower will be a kindness to yourself and others. But my point is more about those decisions that may end up having far reaching consequences.

This came home to me quite recently in the conundrum my daughter is facing. The prospect of beginning University has been a daunting one. For the past year or so, she has been banging on about taking a year out before submerging herself in academics again. A gap year is not a huge deal in Europe. Most students take this time out to go travel the world and figure out what they want out of their lives.

However, I won’t lie, it scared the bejesus out of us! What if she decided never to return to studying? What if, in the process of finding herself, she found herself a boyfriend in a different country and settled down there? What if she went completely off piste doing this gap year malarkey? Quelling these doubts and fears has taken the better part of the year with many persuasive tactics from her, and many many chats with colleagues and friends whose kids have done the same.

In the end we decided that it would be no bad thing, as long as the year was structured and productive. Friends came forward with offers of work, we researched ways she could travel and where to, and the prospect of having our daughter not resent us for forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do, suddenly seemed quite pleasant.

Autonomy can have an interesting side effect.

Once the ball was in her court, she started to truly ponder the consequences of taking that year out. The major one being that she would be that much older graduating, and therefore, her work life would also begin that much later. Whilst most of her peers are taking up the various University places being offered to them, she would fall behind by a year. How would that work out?

Even as I write this, no decisions have been made. A part of me feels really sorry that at such a young age, children have to decide the course of their lives, at least academically. But all of us did it. Some well, and others not so much.

Shortly after finishing my GCSE equivalent in India, while I was still prevaricating about which courses to pick for my A levels, I remember my head teacher telling my father that I should do ‘Arts’. I was a natural fit for the Humanities stream, but for some reason, the ‘Arts’ students in my school were considered the dumbest of the lot. (A terrible injustice, but an unconscious bias that was fostered quite strongly). Neither my grades, nor I, were suited for any of the Sciences, so, much to my dismay, my father insisted that I study Commerce and Accountancy, with a side dish of Higher Mathematics.

For all the people who knew me then, and who know me now, can you see a square peg fitting into a round hole? That was me everyday, for two years of my life. If it wasn’t for some good friends and some understanding teachers, I don’t think I would have managed the marks I did, scraping through with B’s and C’s.

When it came to University choices, once again my father deemed that doing a diploma in Travel and Tourism would open up many opportunities for me, career wise. Thank goodness for that kind soul we encountered, a former patient of my father’s, who showed him the light by saying, “Doctor sahib, why are you forcing your daughter to do a diploma when she is getting accepted into a prestigious BA English (Hons) course?” Sometimes it takes someone on the outside to point out the obvious.

Trust me, I am not resentful of my father’s decisions on my behalf. At least not now. I understand that he did what he did, out of love and concern for me. However, it made me doubly sure that I would never force my ideas on my children.

As parents, it is our duty to guide our children. If we’ve done our job right and instilled the right values in them from the start, then this is the time we need to loosen those reins and allow them to make their own decisions. Hopefully, they’ll make the right ones, and if, Heaven forbid, they do make the wrong ones, nothing is completely unsalvageable. Their safety and their happiness should be our paramount concern. How they get to their destination, what path they take, linear or circular, is completely up to them.

In the immortal words of Theodore Roosevelt:

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

 

 

 

The bane of body shaming

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“You’ve gained weight,no?”

A cousin of my husband’s stated this gleefully, looking at me for agreement. She wanted me to say yes and look ashamed, as I had done many times before in the years gone by.

You see, I have had a peculiar relationship with my body. I have gained and lost weight multiple times in the course of my forty odd years on this planet. Each time I’ve lost weight, I’ve felt wonderful, as though I’ve conquered Mount Everest. Each time I’ve gained weight, I’ve beaten myself up internally, seeing it as a failure at the most basic level – my inability to overcome my appetite, my greed, my love of food. So, it is no wonder that people looking for my Achilles heel have zeroed in on this and hoped that a snide comment or a ‘concerned’ suggestion might trigger the reaction they are looking for.

My relationship with food and my body go back a long, long way to my childhood. My mother was, for a period of time, severely obese, triggering that corrosive disease, diabetes, in her. Consequently, she drummed it into my head that being overweight was a state to be avoided at all cost, if I wanted to stay healthy and disease free. Her suffering became my cautionary tale.

My entry into aviation was another reason to stay trim. After all, in the glamorous world of flying, who wanted to see a fat flight attendant? Vanity and a fear of ill health have, more or less, kept me within my ideal weight range. But it hasn’t been without its share of pitfalls and heartburn.

I am not naturally a slim person. My Malayali genes along with my Punjabi appetite is a lethal combination when it comes to maintaining my figure. I wax and I wane, pretty much like the moon of my name (Poornima means a ‘full moon night’).

Lately, I have been waxing more. Whether that is because I am heading towards peri-menopause, or whether that’s because I honestly can’t be bothered to put in the effort into dieting and exercise, I don’t know. What I DO know is that it’s nobody’s business what size I am.

I said as much to this ‘well-meaning’ sister-in-law. As you can imagine, that went down like a lead balloon. Instead of being fat shamed, I had responded by saying that people’s opinions on my body bothered me not a jot! Even as she stuttered and stammered, I felt liberated.

At long last I was in a place where even if I wasn’t the slimmest person in the room, I was happy and comfortable in my skin.

My body, this wonderful body, that has taken me through life, given me two babies and stayed healthy despite the deprivation and abuse I’ve subjected it to, isn’t my foe. It needs love and nurturing, and regardless of what anyone else might think of it, I will give it just that.

All routes (should) lead to love

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What an incredible weekend I have just had! My first ever Pride parade and attendance at the Attitude Pride awards. It has been illuminating, educational, poignant and exhilarating.

My first contact with a gay person was at the age of twenty. Trinny was charming, funny and ever so handsome. He was also clearly not interested in women. Having just finished an English literature degree, I had a hazy sense of what homosexuality meant because of the multiple references in the various texts I had studied, but this was the first time I was encountering a homosexual in person. Luckily, having been brought up in a very liberal environment in India, this did not faze me in the slightest. Trinny and I struck up an instant friendship. He brought to the table something my other straight male friends never had – an irreverence, a crazy sense of humour and a complete lack of toxic masculinity. Of course, at the time I wouldn’t have been able to describe it in those terms. All I knew was that I felt completely safe with him and we had a blast together.

Time, circumstances and life moved us apart, but I never forgot my first encounter with a gay person. This was to colour all my future interactions. There was always an immediate sense of kinship and safety, and I relished the cutting sense of humour I inevitably came across. Over the years, I have had many, many gay friends and I consider myself privileged that they have embraced me and accepted me into their fold.

Therefore, it is heart rending to note that even today, in so many parts of the world, they are not accepted. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender are just labels. We are all living, breathing human beings underneath all of that. Yet, they are discriminated against, criminalised and marginalised in so many ways, big and small.

At the Attitude Pride awards, each of the winners had intensely moving stories to tell. From losing a lesbian partner to a stray bullet, to being sexually attacked as a man by another man, to having to suffer abuse while playacting as a woman in a gay marriage, to fighting to decriminalise an archaic law against homosexuality in India, each story was powerful and disturbing. Yet, in hugely difficult circumstances, they had overcome all sorts of obstacles and in proudly accepting who they were and what they stood for, forced the world, to not just recognise, but also to reward them for their efforts. I was alternately moved to tears, while cheering them on from the sidelines.

We are who we are. None of us choose our sexuality. It is built into our DNA. So why do we view with contempt those that are different from us? Look at the multiple colours that Nature grants to the world. Doesn’t that make for an exciting and varied life experience for all of us? Imagine if every landscape was the same, if there were only two colours to choose from and if everyday was a repeat of the one before? Wouldn’t we just die of boredom?

The LGBT people amongst us are all the colours of the rainbow. They are what add spice and flavour and beauty to our lives. They are, in their differences, in their multiplicities, in their abundance and profusion, as unique and talented and incredible as any of us.

50 years ago, the Stonewall riots, started a movement, which allowed the LGBT community to fight for their rights and let their true colours fly proudly. 50 years on, the Pride parade is a celebration of all people: it’s about diversity, inclusion, acceptance and most importantly, about love.

Even as I sprinted through the various groups marching in the parade, trying to catch up with my own group, I was struck by how much happiness and love there was in the onlookers and the procession. Everybody who was there wanted to be there. This wasn’t just people wanting to watch a spectacle, this was about people wanting to be a part of history. In supporting the LGBT community, we are paving the way to erode all kinds of discrimination, whether that is on the basis of sexuality, colour, caste or creed.

50 years from now, let us hope that humanity will understand and accept that differences are important. They allow growth, change and progress. In learning to love another, despite all perceived disparities and diversities, we ultimately learn to love ourselves. All routes, must and should, lead to love. ❤️