Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! All of you! I am so overwhelmed by the response to my last blog post ‘When’ Dreams Come True’ that I am still a little teary eyed. So many of you responded on Facebook itself, where I had shared the post, and so many more sent me personal messages and even called me up to congratulate me and ask me for signed copies of my book. And my book isn’t even out yet!
This outpouring of love and genuine happiness on the part of all of you my friends actually had the effect of making me cry. I sat down and wept. I wept out of gratitude. I wept because I felt so humble, that so many people loved me enough to feel happy for my success; to take the trouble to tell me so! I wept because I felt so blessed! So blessed!
And in that moment when I was crying my heart out, I realised that it doesn’t matter if my book does well or not (Of course I know it will :P), but at that moment the fact that so many people were cheering my achievement of a goal, was the greatest OMG moment since the birth of my daughters!
It’s like reaching the finishing line and realising that the crowd is cheering for me. For ‘ME’! And as I look at the crowd, I see lines of my poems in the faces of the people there. And I realise every one of my friends and family has been part of this journey of mine helping me become who I am today, helping me know myself better, helping me write better, grow into myself, till I had the courage to put together these poems to show the world.
When I read my poem ‘Painting over memories’ I see my house in Vashi, with its walls covered in childish scribbles and the friends who shared my life then as a young mother, many of them young mothers themselves.
‘My first day in school’ brings to mind my students and all the teachers I worked with, so many of them who are still in touch with me and from whom I learnt so much.
My family, both the one I was born in and the one I married into is part of almost every poem; supporting me, wiping my tears, helping me get up again, celebrating life with me.
And I realise that this book, ‘Who Shall I Be Today?’ is not mine. It can never be mine. It belongs to everybody who has been part of my life. Everybody has in some way been woven into the poems, bits of my heart and soul.