My Daughter’s Mum Part 1 by Natasha Badhwar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I heard of this book via an IVM podcast, which I enjoyed while driving to my office (link here: http://ivmpodcasts.com/the-seen-and-t… or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXfWy…) and I ordered this book the moment I opened my laptop to work. I was extremely curious about the book, because that’s also how I feel about parenting. I didn’t anticipate the roller coaster of emotions that reading this wonderful collection of essays would take me on. First of all, I yearn to befriend the author, Natasha. Or adopt her as an older sibling. I want to give her a huge hug for writing as beautifully as she does. For being so raw, so poignant, so adorable, so role-modelesque, so flawed and hence so human!
I was reading another book alongside this one, only realizing when I was midway of the other book, that, “Oh! with this read, I reach my GoodReads goal of 75 books for 2017!”. No disrespect to the other one, but I just had to make my 75th a very special one, so I sat down on a fine Thursday morning, to finish this book. The essays left me with a lump in my throat and a smile tugging at my lips. I need to savor each essay individually, and I will shamelessly highlight favorite lines on my second read of this book. The chuckle-inducing conversation snippets that Nastasha captures as handwritten notes in between the essays are wonderful! I am actually very moved and emotional and hence less articulate than I should be. I can already think of some wonderful friends of mine whom I want to gift this book to. Because the book reminds me of difficult conversations we’ve had together, because we are at a point of entering the parenting stage of our lives, because we are Indian women who’ve asked the questions and been distraught with terrible cases we shouldn’t ever forget (Nirbhaya), beacause as we’ve grown up, we’ve begun to deeply respect and acknowledge the role models we’ve had in our lives namely, our mothers, siblings, our fathers, our grandparents; and because I am increasingly emotional about the role my mother has played in my life and realizing how much I need to celebrate her in order to celebrate me. Oh gosh, I can’t write anymore, this is making me very weepy! I am extremely indebted to this beautiful book.
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