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Chasing Ghosts: not just An Adoption Memoir
All her life, Kamila had wanted to find her birth family. She hoped that retirement would give her the much needed time but a prognosis of incurable cancer put paid to that. They say curiosity kills the cat but not in Kamila’s case – it keeps her alive. As her own future shuts down, the past, that she had half-heartedly researched until she realises that death is imminent, begins to open up. She discovers that her parents come from Switzerland and India. And that’s just the beginning…
This is the story of one woman’s quest for her origins – and some of the unexpected insights that lit up her path.
This is the story of one woman’s quest for her origins – and some of the unexpected insights that lit up her path.
295 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 1, 2016
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December 5, 2016
A touching and fascinating true story about a woman struggling with her origin, with who she is and where she came from. Kamila Zahno craves the answers necessary for her to feel whole, to accept who she is for the first time in her life, now that she is facing her mortality.
It's an adventurous life that lies before us and an incredible story. Two people fall in love, she's from upper class India, brought up most of her life in England, he's English born and bred. They settle in Birmingham and adopt four children: a family of mixed racial backgrounds, a unity against the world outside. Camilla, as her adopted parents named her, is fascinated by her mum's birth country, she feels a need to know more, needs to meet the relatives in India. But her mother refuses to let her go and it is only after her mother's death that Camilla decides to go to India.
In Calcutta Camilla is warmly welcomed by her mother's family and enjoys being part of it. It still isn't enough - she has to find out more. Camilla knows her mother had studied at Edinburgh's Medical School before she went back to India to work as a paediatrician. She was an Indian between the Indians when she met Camilla's father during WWII. He was in love, she had to be convinced. But the love letters her mother writes to her father show that, despite being his senior by ten years, her mother fell in love too and followed him to England.
The newly-weds experience difficulties: his parents didn't expect their son to come home married, especially not to an Indian woman, ten years his senior. Little did Camilla's mother know that when she dressed in her festive sari to meet her parents-in-law, her Indian tradition and costume would not fit in with her husband's British family. Perhaps there lies the reason that she mostly wore western clothes thereafter. It was hard that they couldn't have children, that is why they decided to adopt four children of mixed race, as a child of their own also would have been.
Is that the reason that Camilla's mother will not accept the idea of Camilla going to India? Because she is not her mother's biological daughter? Why is it that Camilla feels so strongly connected to India? It takes her mother's death to finally set Camilla off on her journey: she finds relatives of her mother's and she enjoys it to the fullest. But to her surprise Camilla also notices her lack of interest in India's past and that causes mixed emotions. It is there that Camilla realizes she has to find out more about her biological mother and father, about the circumstances regarding her birth.
Camilla shows us her life growing up with her parents, being the youngest of the four (adopted) siblings. She cannot remember many occasions where she felt close to her parents although they did provide a stable environment, encouraged their children to grow and study, to become something, someone in life. Camilla finds it hard to see them as loving and warm parents, with whom you would have a cordial relationship as adults. Experience however, teaches us that every parent wants his child to have a proper education, to study and become an active part of society.
When Camilla moves home she finds a place in London. She works as a planner and becomes an active member of the Labour Party. She is aware of her 'being of mixed heritage' although it was commonly accepted in London in the eighties. Is it because she feels something lacking in her relationship with her parents? Finally she does find out something about her birth parents: she has a Swiss mother Margareta Zahno and an Indian father Lakhan Raja Rao. Her given name at birth is Monica Zahno. Camilla decides to change her name, to honour both her Swiss and Indian side.
Thus the insecure and self-conscious Camilla becomes Kamila Zahno: by accepting that name, she somehow feels more recognizant of who she is. In her own words: “From the frightened feminist and invisible black lesbian of 1982 I emerged into the '90s with a fighting spirit and new confidence." t takes a malignant ovarian cyst to confront Camilla with her mortality and to finally act upon her wish to learn more about her life, her birth parents but also her adopted parents. And she encourages her siblings to do the same, to find out about their origins in life and if possible, living relatives.
Kamila Zahno is an interesting and courageous woman, who took her life in her own hands. By finding out about her adoptive parents as well as her birth parents, she's creating a new self. Is this what everyone needs in life? To know where you're from, how you came into this world? Is it a feeling of missing out, of not belonging, that makes you yearn for the explanation of why your parents gave you up? For Kamila it was. She needed to know, to understand who she is, in order to feel whole for the first time in her life, especially now she is confronted with her mortality.
You can find the review on my website:https://www.bitsaboutbooks.net/chasin...
It's an adventurous life that lies before us and an incredible story. Two people fall in love, she's from upper class India, brought up most of her life in England, he's English born and bred. They settle in Birmingham and adopt four children: a family of mixed racial backgrounds, a unity against the world outside. Camilla, as her adopted parents named her, is fascinated by her mum's birth country, she feels a need to know more, needs to meet the relatives in India. But her mother refuses to let her go and it is only after her mother's death that Camilla decides to go to India.
In Calcutta Camilla is warmly welcomed by her mother's family and enjoys being part of it. It still isn't enough - she has to find out more. Camilla knows her mother had studied at Edinburgh's Medical School before she went back to India to work as a paediatrician. She was an Indian between the Indians when she met Camilla's father during WWII. He was in love, she had to be convinced. But the love letters her mother writes to her father show that, despite being his senior by ten years, her mother fell in love too and followed him to England.
The newly-weds experience difficulties: his parents didn't expect their son to come home married, especially not to an Indian woman, ten years his senior. Little did Camilla's mother know that when she dressed in her festive sari to meet her parents-in-law, her Indian tradition and costume would not fit in with her husband's British family. Perhaps there lies the reason that she mostly wore western clothes thereafter. It was hard that they couldn't have children, that is why they decided to adopt four children of mixed race, as a child of their own also would have been.
Is that the reason that Camilla's mother will not accept the idea of Camilla going to India? Because she is not her mother's biological daughter? Why is it that Camilla feels so strongly connected to India? It takes her mother's death to finally set Camilla off on her journey: she finds relatives of her mother's and she enjoys it to the fullest. But to her surprise Camilla also notices her lack of interest in India's past and that causes mixed emotions. It is there that Camilla realizes she has to find out more about her biological mother and father, about the circumstances regarding her birth.
Camilla shows us her life growing up with her parents, being the youngest of the four (adopted) siblings. She cannot remember many occasions where she felt close to her parents although they did provide a stable environment, encouraged their children to grow and study, to become something, someone in life. Camilla finds it hard to see them as loving and warm parents, with whom you would have a cordial relationship as adults. Experience however, teaches us that every parent wants his child to have a proper education, to study and become an active part of society.
When Camilla moves home she finds a place in London. She works as a planner and becomes an active member of the Labour Party. She is aware of her 'being of mixed heritage' although it was commonly accepted in London in the eighties. Is it because she feels something lacking in her relationship with her parents? Finally she does find out something about her birth parents: she has a Swiss mother Margareta Zahno and an Indian father Lakhan Raja Rao. Her given name at birth is Monica Zahno. Camilla decides to change her name, to honour both her Swiss and Indian side.
Thus the insecure and self-conscious Camilla becomes Kamila Zahno: by accepting that name, she somehow feels more recognizant of who she is. In her own words: “From the frightened feminist and invisible black lesbian of 1982 I emerged into the '90s with a fighting spirit and new confidence." t takes a malignant ovarian cyst to confront Camilla with her mortality and to finally act upon her wish to learn more about her life, her birth parents but also her adopted parents. And she encourages her siblings to do the same, to find out about their origins in life and if possible, living relatives.
Kamila Zahno is an interesting and courageous woman, who took her life in her own hands. By finding out about her adoptive parents as well as her birth parents, she's creating a new self. Is this what everyone needs in life? To know where you're from, how you came into this world? Is it a feeling of missing out, of not belonging, that makes you yearn for the explanation of why your parents gave you up? For Kamila it was. She needed to know, to understand who she is, in order to feel whole for the first time in her life, especially now she is confronted with her mortality.
You can find the review on my website:https://www.bitsaboutbooks.net/chasin...
December 6, 2016
3.5⭐ review tomorrow as part of the blog tour
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews