For a longest time, browsing the Internet furiously, replaced reading a book (hard copy), at leisure. But by a necessary quirk of fate, my Internet connection was out of service for six hours at a stretch, this week.
I picked up One Hundred Years Of Solitude, which had been sitting neglected, on my bookshelf all of seven months, and I could not put it down for the next seven hours.
I lapped up 228 pages like a voyeur on the loose, and then it was time for bed. The story of the Buendia clan is both thrilling and disturbing, and I wanted to plough through it, all night. But the more I read, the more eerie I felt. I finally put down the book, but the colourful, eccentric, willful characters in the book appeared in my dreams.
Fernanda, Piedade and Jose – these are the name of characters in the book as well as of relatives, house servants and village folks, back in Goa. So, I felt a strange familiarity, by virtue of our colonial ancestry. A little girl arrives one fine day, wearing a scapula around her neck. I stopped wearing one many years back and I had almost forgotten the existence of this sacred thread, worn by most Roman Catholics in Goa.
The mention of Guajira, which refers to an Indian tribe (from Cuba me thinks) reminded me of the song Guantanamera, which features ‘Guajira in the chorus. The word may have different meanings in the book and the song, yet, it transported me to an anecdote from pop’s younger days. A musician would gaily mispronounce Gauntanamera at weddings and dances. “Gone Through The Mirror”, he sang, instead.
I also remember old tailor Santan who would come round to my aunty’s (or was it my grandma’s) house, to sew for two-three days at a stretch. He had his own rendition of the song; “Santanamera”, he would sing, feeling extremely pleased as he saluted himself, hummed a few notes, and proceeded to whip up a frock with a frill, a boat neck and darts, in 20 minutes.
Tags: cuba, fernanda, gabriel garcia marquez, guajira, guantanamera, indian, jose, one hundred years of solitude, piedade, santan
written with alot of passion