20 Comments

I love this quote. Thanks for posting. And I need to read this book . . .

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Glad to hear that. I think it's a wonderful book (so far)!

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Loved reading that snippet from Rushdie's book. I see a bit of me in that description. Love the name 'doodling-bug.' And your baby's sketches are great. You're becoming a master of lines, curves, and expressions with minimalist lines.

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Thank you Neera! It was quite a challenge to draw as he rolled about the floor, but I loved taking it on. At one point I had to wait for him to roll back on his belly so I could finish one of the drawings. 😄

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I've never read Rushdie - but now I understand his great appeal (and perhaps his threat). Great stuff. Love your drawings and can totally relate to your study being overtaken by tiny, crawling creatures :) Keep at it!

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Thank you Amy! I highly recommend The Enchantress of Florence.

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Jul 31Liked by Nishant Jain

I may have to start reading Rushdie. In return I suggest The Covenant of Water.

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YES!

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Thank you for the recommendation, Nina, this book sounds intriguing. Curiously, even in The Moor's Last Sigh, the family members seem to all die by drowning!

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On my bedside table now. Cutting For Stone was astoundingly good and I immediately bought his second (which took him over ten years to write).

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Oh that's great to have a second endorsement too!

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I love how you have recorded Rohan’s sounds, his language, as well as his physical changes and movements💕

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'His language' is so correct, sometimes it feels like he is speaking in full sentences!

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I haven't read that book in too many years. And yes -- it's something I love about Elif Shafak's newsletter, her ability to direct attention repeatedly onto the power of stories. What are humans, really, if not story-making creatures?

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My control engineering professors said that humans have the superpower and super-weakness to seek patterns where none exist. We cannot contend with true randomness. I suppose that is also why we made gods, and why we make stories.

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Beautifully said. I think it's true. One of the most memorable classes I ever had was high school history when I was 14. The professor ran a unit where we were broken up into groups, and each group was given a sheet of paper describing the island that our group had been stranded on. Each island had different ecosystems, resources, challenges, etc., and we had to figure out how to survive. It was fascinating because of how it tapped into the building of inter-dependence (and rivalries, power struggles, etc.) without being overt about it.

But the best part was when we got to the point where we'd been living on the island for long enough to have had children of our own, and then someone died and we had to explain to the children what had happened. Only one group truly understood the assignment of explaining death: they created a religion.

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So interesting!

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Thank you for sharing. Wonderful writing. Made my morning. Also made this fearful introvert vow to don a hat, sunglasses, and earbuds, and try again.

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Be sneaky if you need to, if it helps with going out more often. But know that you can do the other as well!

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